Artificial-Muscle-Driven Slender Continuum Robots for Nuclear Decommissioning A Design Framework Emphasizing Speed, Robustness, and Modular Disposability

Nuclear decommissioning environments impose extreme constraints, including high radiation fields,confined geometries, debris-filled pathways, and strong pressure to minimize mission time in orderto reduce exposure and equipment degradation. This paper proposes a decommissioning-orienteddesign framework for slender continuum robots driven by artificial muscles, prioritizing operationalspeed, rapid reversibility, structural simplicity, and modular disposability rather than biomimeticfidelity or actuation efficiency. The framework integrates continuous-body locomotion for high-speed traversal, pull-driven cycliccontraction for reliable advance and retreat, and compliant manipulation interfaces for samplingand debris handling. A Protective Skin Module (PSM) architecture is introduced to treat contaminationcontrol as a first-class design constraint through exchangeable multilayer sleeves, enablingdisposable, reusable, or hybrid operational strategies. By abstracting artificial muscle actuation away from specific material implementations, the proposedarchitecture emphasizes robustness, radiation tolerance, and fail-silent behavior. The robot ispositioned as an upstream component of a closed nuclear decommissioning workflow, interfacing withdownstream immobilization and containment systems. The study contributes a design-level frameworkoptimized for extreme environments, offering a practical basis for rapid prototyping and fielddeployment under prolonged decommissioning conditions.