5th November 2025 – Pisa – Fluid Wire Robotics (FWR) has signed a strategic partnership agreement with NAAREA, the French company developing the fourth-generation XAMR® molten-salt fast-neutron microreactor. This collaboration focuses on providing NAAREA with safe and reliable FWR robotic handling capabilities for its fuel production facility and XAMR® microreactors, particularly during maintenance and dismantling operations.

 

The microreactor that NAAREA is developing is a fourth-generation molten salt fast reactor capable of generating 40 MWe and 80 MWth for low- or high-temperature heat, using long-lived radioactive waste recovered from spent nuclear fuel.

Designed to be installed in close proximity to electro-intensive industrial sites, the microreactors will remain under NAAREA’s ownership to ensure safety, security, and proper maintenance at all times. To make this possible, they require handling capabilities that can operate reliably in extreme radiation, temperature, and underwater conditions, ensuring safety and precision throughout the entire lifecycle of the reactors—from fuel production to maintenance and decommissioning.

In this context, FWR provides the technological backbone that makes this vision possible. Leveraging its Fluid Wire Technology, FWR delivers remote and unmanned inspection, maintenance, and repair through a robotic platform that combines high dexterity, force feedback, and resilience in high-radiation, high-temperature, and underwater environments. This is achieved with the ability to work in both “remote operation” and “production” modes, using repetitive sequences programmed and validated in advance.

Through FWR robots, NAAREA will be able to:

• Inspect and maintain its microreactors using robotics (in maintenance facilities or on operational sites);
• Automate certain key steps of the fuel production process (in particular the handling of reprocessed fuel);
• Carry out robot-assisted dismantling operations, including in pools;
• Optimize, automate, and safely perform certain activities in laboratories and production sites.

Through this partnership, NAAREA’s microreactors will benefit from the integration of FWR’s robotic solutions, contributing to their advancement and the company’s goal of building a safe, sustainable, and replicable industrial model.

For FWR, this collaboration marks an important milestone in the commercialization of its robotic technology in the nuclear sector, expanding into the French market, a strategic and globally recognized leader in nuclear innovation.

Read the official joint press release: [link]

 

About Fluid Wire Robotics

Fluid Wire Robotics (FWR) is a spin-off from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa), founded in 2024 by Marco Bolignari, Marco Fontana, Ivan De Leonardis, Gianluigi Grandesso, and Francesco Damiani. The company’s mission is to enable remote and unmanned inspection, maintenance, repair, and assembly in the world’s most extreme and unstructured environments. At the core of FWR’s innovation is its proprietary Fluid Wire technology, which relocates all actuation and electronics to a remote Actuation Box. This breakthrough enables the development of fully electric robotic manipulators that are inherently suited for operation in radiation, vacuum, underwater, explosive, and high-temperature conditions—while remaining accessible in terms of cost, deployment, and maintenance. FWR’s modular and scalable platform delivers high dexterity, resilience, and safety across a broad range of critical missions and industries, providing a universal foundation for reliable automation “at the edge.” Recognized as a NATO DIANA Innovator under the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic program, FWR demonstrates strong dual-use potential across defence and critical-infrastructure sectors. The company is also incubated at the European Space Agency (ESA) BIC Turin, reinforcing its growth trajectory and expanding its capabilities within the aerospace domain.

Learn more at: https://www.fluidwirerobotics.com/

 

 

About Naarea

NAAREA (Nuclear Abundant Affordable Resourceful Energy for All) was founded in 2020 by Jean-Luc Alexandre and Ivan Gavriloff to help meet the objectives of energy sovereignty, decarbonization and improving the energy mix. NAAREA is developing the XAMR®, a fourth-generation fast neutron microreactor capable of producing electricity (40 megawatts electric) and high-temperature heat (80 megawatts thermal) by burning long-lived nuclear waste from spent fuel from nuclear power plants. The XAMR® microreactor is designed to be industrially mass-produced and installed in close proximity to consumers, namely in the mobility sector, electro-intensive industries and remote areas. A source of carbon-free and non-intermittent energy, planned to be brought to the market by the 2030s, NAAREA’s XAMR® microreactor is paving the way for sustainable and innovative nuclear energy that supports energy independence, increased resilience and the circular economy. NAAREA is a winner of the “Innovative Nuclear Reactors” call for proposals under the France 2030 investment plan.

Learn more at: www.naarea.fr