Improved Technology Readiness Assessment Method for Fusion Remote Maintenance Systems from a Product-Driven Design Approach Based on Design by Cataloguing

The design approach for remote maintenance (RM) systems for EU-DEMO is now focused on defining equipment with appropriate maturity and technology readiness level (TRL) to shorten the lifecycle and engineering design process while implicating existing and matured technologies in the fusion engineering design. A novel product-driven (PD) approach, based on the design by cataloguing, has been introduced to define mature equipment with higher technology levels. Therefore, the PD is a COTS-driven design approach characterized as the further reduction of technology risk, primarily related to integrating COTS technologies into the fusion tokamak system design. The PD activities include the continued maturation of COTS systems (concept maturation (CM)), integration activities to ensure compatibility in the DEMO tokamak environment and testing to ensure performance and reliability. Technology readiness assessment (TRA) is a crucial tool in CM for quantitatively evaluating COTS system technological levels (STL), judging the feasibility of application in DEMO RM, and managing the associated risks. However, since PD is contextualized as an integrated complex system, the current TRA, which relies on the TRL method, which is suitable for assessing individual technologies and has limitations in evaluating SRL, is inadequate. An Improved Technology Readiness Assessment (ITRA) is proposed as a method for the PD design. The ITRA improves the TRA framework by refining TRA procedures and criteria from a systems-integration perspective. The proposed ITRA framework incorporates the EU-DEMO Tokamak's operational capabilities, technical difficulties, and critical RM technologies in the assessment. The proposed method is demonstrated through the ongoing development activities for the Tokamak Ports and In-BioShield RM equipment. The preliminary results showed improvements in the assessment and synthesis of complex systems' design by systematically reviewing the TRL of available commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions while performing functional analysis and evaluating each solution's technology maturity.