3. Research applications

In the context of research laboratories and associated scientific equipment, a number of operating experiences with remote handling technologies for routine maintenance provide significant feedback. One example is the European controlled fusion facility JET, which has logged over 7,500 hours of remote operation in operation ( http://www.jet.efda.org/ ). The Spalation Neutron Source facility ( http://www.ornl.gov ) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA is also equipped with recent force feedback teleoperation systems, dedicated to maintenance.

Inside the vacuum chamber of a thermonuclear fusion tokamak, of which ITER (http://www.iter.org) is the emblematic example, "critical" components (those...