When the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the first firefighting robot and two additional similar products were sent to Chernobyl according to a telegram from A.V. Vlasov, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. There, they cleaned up a significant part of the roof at a mark of 70 m from the radioactive debris and saved the health of many soldiers of chemical troops, who had to do this work manually.
In the report of the management of the Chernobyl NPP, the “good prospects” of technical solutions were noted. The State Committee on Atomic Energy decided to create robotic firefighting complexes for the NPPs. Such a complex was created at the Leningrad NPP.
Unfortunately, these works were wound down in the 90s. However, it turned to be possible to retain the scientific and technical basis and specialists. Later, the works were not only continued, but even expanded, and the Laboratory of firefighting robots was transformed into the Engineering centre of fire robots technology “FR”.
