Digital Mock-Ups for Nuclear Decommissioning: A Survey on Existing Simulation Tools for Industry Applications

The maturation of Virtual Reality software introduces new avenues of nuclear decommissioning research. Digital Mockups are an emerging technology which provide a virtual representation of the environment, objects or processes, supporting the whole lifecycle of product development and operations. This paper provides a survey on currently available simulation tools to design digital mock-ups required for safe remote decommissioning activities in the nuclear industry. The survey looks at eleven simulation tools; CoppeliaSim, Gazebo Classic, Gazebo (Ignition), Nvidia Omniverse Isaac Sim, WeBots, Choreonoid, AGX Dynamics, MORSE, VR4Robots, RoboDK, and Toia. Using the available documentation, the different capabilities of these software packages were assessed for their suitability to nuclear decommissioning, such as environment simulation, haptic interfaces, and general usability.