Evaluating the Radiation Tolerance of a Robotic Finger

In 2024, The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will be upgraded to increase its luminosity by a factor of 10 (HL-LHC). The ATLAS inner detector (ITk) will be upgraded at the same time. It has suffered the most radiation damage, as it is the section closest to the beamline, and the particle collisions. Due to the risk of excessive radiation doses, human intervention to decommission the inner detector will be restricted. Robotic systems are being developed to carry out the decommissioning and limit radiation exposure to personnel. In this paper, we present a study of the radiation tolerance of a robotic finger assessed in the Birmingham Cyclotron facility. The finger was part of the Shadow Grasper from Shadow Robot Company, which uses a set of Maxon DC motors.