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索科罗,N.M. – ag亚游集团App下载 student Ben Katko is making nuclear criticality safety more effective, 通过增强现实技术高效、安全. 

Not only did he win an award for 他的海报, but Katko also proposed an augmented reality project to Los Alamos National Laboratory and NMT. 他设法筹到了23000美元 in funding for his team’s Senior Design Clinic project.

Katko finished his third summer at LANL this year, culminating with a top award for 他的海报. Katko and teammate Brian Bleck, an undergrad at UNM, worked with 工作人员 研究工程师. David Mascarenas to develop a novel ARsolution for all operations 在核设施内. AR is the placement of virtual objects (PDF documents) 进入物理空间(核罐). 简而言之，他们的发明增加了 users with real-time knowledge, empowers users with the ability for on-the-fly documentation generation and viewing, and improves spatial, situational, and administrative awareness.

“Brian, David, and I are all competitive, so we had a good sense that we had something 独一无二，”卡特科说.  “We just hoped the judges would recognize how unique our work 是. 我很兴奋. It made the summer worthwhile because this is more graduate 水平,Ph值.D.-level 研究 – how to make new engineering tools, the fundamentals 创造新知识的背后.

“You don’t always get to do that at the undergraduate level – and then getting this 新的高级设计诊所项目，”Katko说. “这说明了New的性格 Mexico Tech and our mechanical engineering 研究 – pushing boundaries and engaging 学生. We are aware of where the future is going and now shaping it.”

With the funding, Katko’s Senior Design Clinic team can support five mechanical engineering 学生. Katko hopes to double the team size in the future to include 学生 from 计算机科学和电气工程.

Katko is using the Microsoft HoloLens to create an AR tool. HoloLens有四个 spatial cameras and one infrared receiver/transmitter, which gives depth to the four 摄像头——都是实时的.

“The power of this tool is that it’s a hands-free device,” Katko said. 一个例子 of this summer’s 研究 is “A glove box technician wearing the HoloLens can trigger hands-free events such as documentation viewing and video recording. 次数越少 they have to take their hands out to review or amend documents, the safer the process 是给他们的. This is empowering because every time they take their hands out of the glovebox they can potentially damage the glove material and, regardless, they must go through the protocol of radiation dosage evaluation.”

There is currently a great need for next-generation, human-machine interfaces to reduce the occurrence of criticality safety incidents during operations in nuclear facilities. The work shutdowns associated with criticality safety incidents can lead to significant 生产力损失. Katko’s innovation is meant to improve nuclear facility operations through the use of emerging AR technology which allows for easy, on-the-fly access to information which in turn augments the technician’s ability to operate more effectively, 高效，更安全.

The AR work will be used in the future to help managers plan complicated material moves in ways that do not violate nuclear criticality safety regulations. 此外, the nature of the AR technology (gaze, gesture and voice commands) makes it an attractive method for facilitating the training of technicians in nuclear material operations 工作验证.

Katko’s work could be used across the Department of Energy complex to ensure technicians 在各种情况下安全可靠地工作. 这将是向前迈出的一步 improving the quality of documentation of the work that occurs in nuclear facilities while simultaneously increasing the ease with which this documentation can be collected. In addition, there is potential that glove boxes could be instrumented with imagers to determine precise spatial locations of nuclear material containers at human speeds, 进一步提高临界安全性.

This information is fed into a criticality safety model. 临界的结果 safety analysis are then communicated visually to the glovebox technician using holograms 使用AR技术显示. The AR effectively endows the nuclear facility managers, technicians, and operators  with a sense for administrative nuclear criticality safety. AR technology also presents a potential path forward for next-generation smart personal protective equipment (PPE) that can be used in nuclear facilities.