Hazmat and CBRNE incidents

The situation

Every entry costs more than time

Working time in a gas-tight chemical protective suit is limited to roughly 20 to 25 minutes by the physical and psychological strain. Under FwDV 500, the German fire service regulation for CBRN operations, self-contained breathing apparatus worn beneath encapsulating protective clothing should in any case not be used for more than 30 minutes. Everything has to happen inside that window: in, look, measure, out.

Then there is what a single entry ties up. A team in a gas-tight suit needs a backup team, an established decontamination line and the personnel to bring them out and decontaminate them. The decision to send someone in is therefore never a decision about that one person alone.

And here is the heart of it: a large share of these entries serve to establish facts rather than to act. What is escaping, how far has it spread, is the zone clear. That is precisely the part a vehicle can take over — leaving the limited time in the suit for the work that genuinely needs hands.

Tasks

What the vehicle does inside the zone

Four tasks that can be handled by sensors and mechanics — and that today each cost one entry in a suit.

Clearance measurement

Establishing whether an area may be entered. Under DGUV Rule 113-004, the German accident insurers’ rules for work in vessels, silos and confined spaces, that covers at least oxygen, methane and carbon dioxide, and depending on the situation hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide as well — measured where someone will later be standing, not at the edge. Since most work in shafts and vessels requires continuous monitoring, the vehicle can also stay inside while the work goes on.

Building block: Gas detector cluster payload

Detection and mapping

Detecting chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive hazards and tying each reading to a position. The result is not a single value but a georeferenced picture of how far the substance has spread.

Building block: CBRNE mapping payload

Sampling

Picking up material and bringing it out to where it can be analysed — without anyone having to enter the zone for it. The sample leaves the area; the person never enters it in the first place.

Building block: Manipulator payload

Recovery and securing

Retrieving objects from the contaminated area, covering a leak, repositioning a drum, operating a valve. For heavier loads the winch takes over what the arm cannot manage.

Building blocks: Manipulator · Winch

Incident types

Where such incidents arise

Road accidents involving dangerous goods — unclear substance, unclear quantity, unclear container integrity, often on an open stretch of road
Chemical parks and production plants — known substances, but large quantities and complex plant sections
Wastewater, biogas, silos and vessels — the classic oxygen-deficiency and hydrogen-sulphide situations, where entry is itself the risk
Suspicious substances or objects found — reconnaissance from a distance, before anyone decides who approaches at all
Radiological incidents — measuring and mapping where time on site translates directly into dose
Fires involving hazardous materials — in combination with firefighting

Limits

What has to be weighed up

The vehicle itself gets contaminated. Whoever sends it into the zone has to decontaminate it afterwards — or, in the worst case, leave it behind. Decontamination costs time, logistics and people; smooth surfaces and few crevices are therefore not a question of aesthetics but a procurement criterion.
It does not replace laboratory analysis. Detection on the spot narrows things down; the reliable identification of an unknown substance is the work of specialist laboratories and units such as Germany’s Analytical Task Force. The vehicle brings the sample to them, it does not analyse it.
Measuring is not clearing. Whether a zone may be entered is decided by the incident commander under the applicable rules — the vehicle supplies data for that decision, it does not make it.
Potentially explosive atmospheres require certified equipment. Tell us which zone classification applies to your scenarios and we will say openly what is possible today and what is not.

Configuration

A typical hazmat platform

Platform: PALLAS.75 for interiors, shafts and confined plant sections; larger sizes where a manipulator and detection equipment have to be carried together
Payloads: gas detector cluster, CBRNE mapping, manipulator, RGB camera, and where fire is involved a thermal camera
Extensions: winch for recovery and self-recovery, lighting for shafts and night operations
System components: data link with relay nodes — the critical point inside vessels and basements — and the control station for working through the picture it builds

For recurring measurements in normal operation rather than during an incident, see plant inspection — the same sensors, a different occasion.

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