The importance of in-plant inspections for nuclear reactors has grown through the years, particularly with the aging of the facilities and the high demand and price of power. Effective and thorough inspections are required, while the emphasis has been to reduce the amount of downtime or outage in order to minimize lost production and maximize revenues. DOE has designed, manufactured and delivered ROV systems that are tailored for various inspection applications within nuclear reactors. In addition to delivering standard production vehicles, DOE has partnered with industry leaders, including GE Nuclear Energy and Westinghouse, to develop specially engineered ROV systems to integrate with their proprietary tools and sensors.

A radical, but highly versatile, custom-designed ROV was delivered to General Electric Nuclear for use in Boiling Water Reactor plants to position large, sophisticated inspection tools quickly in strong and variable thermal currents under stringent timelines during outages. The ROV was designed to be powerful enough to travel quickly to critical inspection points within the reactor and handle/rotate the large heavy tools. The ROV was also designed to allow stable positioning of the tools while working in these challenging currents. The first prototype was successfully deployed and, since then, four more systems have been ordered and delivered.