Veolia Nuclear Solutions

The UK nuclear arm of Veolia, with an Abingdon base, that designs remote-handling robots and machines for jobs too dangerous for people, such as nuclear clean-up and fusion energy research.

About Veolia Nuclear Solutions

Veolia Nuclear Solutions designs machines and robots that do work in places people cannot safely go, such as the inside of old nuclear plants. Its remote handling and bespoke machinery page lists engineering studies, software and physical modelling, robotics and automation, haptic virtual reality tools, and the testing of full-size mock-ups of work areas. A key product is the Dexter remote manipulator system, a two-arm telemanipulator with force feedback, which lets an operator feel what the machine is touching. Its work has included an in-pond manipulator at Sellafield and robotic arms for investigating damaged reactors at Fukushima in Japan.

The company is part of the Veolia group. Its remote handling page states the aim of "removing humans from harm and danger and enabling otherwise impossible tasks to be performed". A business directory says it has a portfolio of more than 200 innovations, including the GeoMelt waste-glassing process. It has worked on the Windscale Pile 1 reactor in Cumbria, designing a custom robotic system with UKAEA to remove fuel remotely, and won a UKAEA innovation award for a virtual safety report. It also works on fusion energy projects, including a collaboration with the UKAEA's RACE robotics centre. UKAEA is already on the PURPOSE site.

In the UK, the BEC Business Cluster directory lists Veolia Nuclear Solutions (UK) Ltd at Nuffield Way, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, with a contact in the directory also showing a Whitehaven, Cumbria address, though it does not say whom that belongs to. The company's own pages place its work at Sellafield and Windscale in Cumbria, and it has also worked on GeoMelt trials with the National Nuclear Laboratory. Directory contacts include a communications director, a principal scientist and a programme manager. The directory gives no headcount.

We did not find a culture page or employee reviews. What the company's own materials show is a culture of working on safety-critical problems with partners: it describes working "hand in hand" with UKAEA and engineering partners on Windscale, testing designs in mock-up environments before they are used, and putting a "human-centred approach" at the start of engineering studies. A job specification on its site for a control systems and software engineer indicates that the roles include software as well as mechanical design, though it is dated 2018.

People in a company like this include mechanical, electrical and control engineers, software developers, nuclear safety specialists, physicists and chemists who understand the waste, project managers, and the technicians who build and test machines in the workshop. If you like maths, physics, engineering or computing and want your work to make hazardous sites safer, this is the kind of company where those subjects are used on real clean-up projects.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Design of machines and manipulators that work in high-radiation or other hazardous areas.', 'title': 'Remote handling systems'}
• {'desc': 'A two-arm, force-feedback manipulator that lets an operator feel remote work.', 'title': 'Dexter telemanipulator'}
• {'desc': 'Full-scale test facilities and virtual models used to prove a design before it goes into a real plant.', 'title': 'Mock-ups and testing'}

Key facts

• UK entity Veolia Nuclear Solutions (UK) Ltd listed at Nuffield Way, Abingdon, Oxfordshire
• Designed a robotic system with UKAEA to remove fuel remotely from Windscale Pile 1
• Portfolio of more than 200 innovations including the GeoMelt process (directory entry)
• Work includes Sellafield, Fukushima and fusion programmes

Website: www.nuclearsolutions.veolia.com