P10.19 There have been significant developments in the application of robotics technology to nuclear power plant maintenance problems. Thus far, robot

ics technology in the nuclear industry has been used primarily on spent-fuel reprocessing and waste man

agement. The industry is applying the technology to such areas as primary containment inspection, reac

tor maintenance, facility decontamination, and acci

dent recovery activities. These developments suggest that the application of remotely operated devices can significantly reduce radiation exposure to personnel and improve maintenance-program performance.

Currently, an operational robotic system is under development to address particular operational problems within a nuclear power plant. This device, IRIS (Industrial Remote Inspection System), is a general-purpose surveillance system that conducts particular inspection and handling tasks with the goal of significantly reducing personnel exposure to high radiation fields [12]. The device is shown in Figure P10.19. The open-loop transfer function is

(a) Determine a suitable gain K for the system when

T = 0.5 s, so that the percent overshoot to a step input is P O. . ≤ 30%. Determine the steady-state error.

(b) Design a compensator

G(s) = Ke-ST (s+1)(s+3)