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Deployment

Spot at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom

Spot is Boston Dynamics' commercially available quadruped robot for autonomous inspection and reality capture. Carrying laser scanners and 360-degree cameras, it runs repeatable Autowalk missions (record a path once, then execute autonomously with dynamic obstacle avoidance) and is widely used for industrial inspection across energy, utilities, manufacturing and construction; the Scout software manages fleets and missions.

Roughly 1,500+ units are deployed globally (base price ~$74,500). It is distinct from Boston Dynamics' Stretch warehouse case-handling robot (see boston-dynamics-stretch) and the Atlas humanoid (see boston-dynamics-atlas), sharing only the manufacturer.

Spot by Boston Dynamics · Unverified · Quadrupeds

Track Spot at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom

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Sellafield Ltd has used a Boston Dynamics Spot quadruped, customised for nuclear work by Createc, to support decommissioning at the Sellafield site in Cumbria. A three-day trial ran in Calder Hall's former turbine hall in 2021 (reported September 2021). Use cases were demonstrated in 2022 and 2023, the first deployment in a C5 (highly radiological) area followed in 2023/24, and in 2025 Sellafield and AtkinsRealis operated the robot from Westlakes Science Park, outside the licensed site boundary.

In February 2026 a RAICo-developed swabbing tool mounted on Spot was trialled on a simulated spill. In April 2026 Sellafield said it would move the robots from trial activity into routine operations over the next two years. No robot count is published.

Key facts

Country
United Kingdom
Sector
Nuclear decommissioning
Operator
Sellafield Ltd
Integrators
Createc (customisation, deployment, maintenance); AtkinsRealis (systems integration)
Tasks
Inspection, mapping, gamma and alpha characterisation, swabbing, sample collection
Milestones
2021 trial; 2023/24 first C5-area deployment; 2025 off-site teleoperation; 2026 swabbing trial
Status
Moving from trial to routine operations over two years from April 2026 (company-stated)
Scale
Not disclosed

Safety record

No incidents on record for Spot at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Trust tier
Unverifiedhow tiers work →
Last updated
2026-10-26
Model
Spot
Company
Boston Dynamics
Location
United Kingdom/Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom
Status
operational
Operator type
customer deployed
Site environment
indoor
First seen
2021-09-09
ID
3b7bfe00-6482-4fbb-949e-ee75063a5160

Timeline

  1. Sep 2021
    First recorded
    Spot first documented operating at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom.
  2. Oct 2026
    Current status: operational
    Latest recorded state. New status transitions append here as the deployment-status recorder produces them.

On the deployment map

Operates worldwide

Spot is deployed globally rather than at a single verified site, so there is no map pin.

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Spot operates in Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom. Explore the full verified map:

Sources (4)

  1. Spot goes nuclear · https://constructionmanagement.co.uk/spot-goes-nuclear/ · 2021-09-09
  2. Remotely operated robot deployed at Sellafield · https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/remotely-operated-robot-deployed-at-sellafield · 2025-03-18
  3. Sellafield trials robot swabbing tech · https://www.neimagazine.com/news/sellafield-trials-robot-swabbing-tech/ · 2026-02-13
  4. How robot dogs are helping to clean up Sellafield · https://www.bindt.org/News/april-2026/how-robot-dogs-are-helping-to-clean-up-sellafield/ · 2026-04-23
Methodology: Unreviewed · 4 sources (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-10-26

Verification posture

Unreviewed

Low confidence

Review state

Stable

Last reviewed 2026-10-26

Maturity + lifecycle

Maturity stage: commercial

Lifecycle: active

Architectural position

Cohort: quadruped

Sources by quality tier

4
unclassified
Unclassified source

The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.

Methodology surface for Spot at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom.

Common questions

What is the Spot deployment at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom?
Spot, built by Boston Dynamics, is recorded as a deployment at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom on the DEPLOY registry. Boston Dynamics operates the deployment directly.
Who operates Spot at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom?
Boston Dynamics, the manufacturer of Spot, operates this deployment directly. This is a maker-deploys-its-own-product arrangement rather than a customer pilot.
When did the Spot deployment at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom go live?
The deployment is recorded as starting September 9, 2021 on the DEPLOY registry. Earlier activity may exist but is not yet sourced.
Have there been incidents at the Spot deployment at Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom?
No active incidents affecting this deployment are recorded on the DEPLOY registry. Absence of recorded incidents is not a guarantee no incident occurred; DEPLOY records only sourced incidents and suppresses retracted ones.

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