Due to the significant cost, time, and safety risks of pulse power engineers performing in-person
visual inspections in the capacitor bay at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 2020 sponsored a senior design project to create an
autonomous robot platform, Hawkeye, to perform remote visual inspections. Hawkeye II is the
second iteration of the robot that is focused on improving the mechanical and electrical designs
of Hawkeye I, implementing autonomous navigation, and creating a graphical user interface
(GUI) for manual control and viewing inspection images and other data. Hawkeye II also
implements an inspection pan-tilt-zoom camera that flags a failed circuit breaker or LED
through image processing and machine learning, a thermal camera that detects abnormal rising
heat, a microphone to pick up abnormal sounds, and proximity sensors for collision avoidance.
Testing and performance evaluation of the robot at NIF is expected in April and May, 2022.