Universities known for breakthroughs in materials science, metallurgy, and mining often push into unmanned technologies. What projects are currently advancing in this field?
The focus is on robotizing mining processes. Routine, hazardous, and dangerous tasks are increasingly handled by machines, reducing direct human involvement in production. A notable project in this area is the Mark robot, developed by students for Norilsk Nickel as part of the Student Start competition.
Mark is a robotic platform measuring 120 by 120 by 80 centimeters, designed for high mobility and underground work. Each wheel is motorized, with a vertical axis for rotation and a system to adjust clearance.
The assembly includes a high-tech lidar sensor on the platform for mine exploration. It scans the study area and builds three-dimensional models to understand spatial characteristics. The platform can travel up to 4 km/h and can alter its span from 20 to 45 centimeters. Work is underway to create an IT control solution for the robot, including firmware development for the main controller.
Could you share university projects related to nuclear energy?
Advances in nuclear power engineering point toward new coolant types, higher operating temperatures and pressures, and, most importantly, longer service life—80 years or more. Realizing these goals requires materials with fundamentally new properties, a shift that a traditional, comprehensive approach cannot deliver quickly.
So how will new materials be created? The core material properties form during solidification. The challenge can be addressed by guiding the growth of the solid phase, which ensures the desired quality and enables materials with gradients, including internal reinforcement. This demands precision in technologies such as controlled fusion, high-precision machining, accurate casting, and additive manufacturing.
It is important to note that the solidification-control project already yields practical results in additive processes. The approach allows controlled changes in phase-transition kinetics, leading to the predicted primary crystal structure as designed by technologists.
What practical outcomes are expected from this method?
Primarily, it would shorten the development time for promising products by a factor of ten and raise material utilization by up to ninety percent.
In nuclear-energy materials, this approach could cut the cost of metal products by ten to fifteen percent and enable initial production using additive manufacturing with a seventy-five percent reduction in development time and a ninety percent reduction in small-batch production costs. Digital control in machine-building and metallurgical industries already promises economic benefits, such as higher material usage in reactor-vessel cavities and lower gas and electricity consumption by at least ten percent. These gains point toward a lean, resource-efficient economy.
The university also develops technologies for advanced energy systems. The emerging concept centers on reconfiguring the nuclear cycle, moving from traditional fuel to fast-neutron reactors beyond VVER-type water-cooled systems, refining fuel production, and increasing the fraction of fuel effectively utilized in power generation.
In the realm of advanced energy systems, the emphasis remains on end-to-end quality management across the entire production chain of responsible engineering products. The aim is to deliver high-quality metal components capable of performing under aggressive environments with high temperature, pressure, and radiation exposure.
This quality is pursued by guiding solid-phase formation during sequential surfacing, conventional and powder-based technologies, and by developing procedures to produce ultrapure alloys and new materials tailored to specific requirements. Attention is also given to recycled materials and the integration of digital approaches in product and blank production.
What about the shortage of engineering and technical professionals in the country?
There is indeed a concern. In recent years, production means—such as machine tools and heavy-to-medium machinery—were imported with minimal local development. This reliance has clarified the need to reestablish domestic capability and technological leadership.
To address this, federal initiatives have started. A national program supports advanced engineering schools, and NUST MISIS will host MAST (Materials Science, Additives, and End-to-End Technologies) to anchor Russia’s materials science and additive technologies development.
Will new training programs emerge?
Two new structural divisions are planned: the Institute of Biomaterials Science and the Institute of Physics and Quantum Engineering.
In biomaterials and bioengineering, work focuses on innovative tissue and organ bioprinting techniques, including magnetic bioprinting and direct skin printing with robotic assistance. The goal is to advance reparative processes, assess cell and tissue viability, and monitor drug efficacy. In physics and quantum engineering, the aim is to develop quantum computing and quantum communication using superconducting and optical qubits. While these areas are currently in demonstration and research phases, a transition to industry will be necessary soon.
A third priority centers on digitizing and greening metallurgical and mining production. This includes digital twins for mining and the broader deployment of unmanned technologies in mining operations.