Robots Mustering for Recovery in Japan

[Hatchling]

Posted 20 Mar 2011 at 18:40 UTC

A radiation monitoring robot, dubbed Monirobo ("monitor" + "robot") (source), developed by Japan's Nuclear Safety Technology Center (NUSTEC), has been deployed to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. While possibly the only robot being brought into play which had been specifically designed for use in a nuclear accident, it's far from the only robot to be deployed, or at least offerred for deployment during the during the recovery phase of the current disaster in Japan. (More after the break)

Dr. Robin Murphy of CRASAR argues on her blog that robots are needed even more now than during the search and rescue phase, due to the massive scale of the cleanup facing Japan. There is debris to be cleared, infrastructure, much of it submerged, to be checked for damage, and something like 11,000 bodies to be recovered, most of them also under water. Moreover, that water is far from ideal for diving, being turbid, and, at least in the north where the tsunami hit hardest, cold.

http://robots.net/article/3125.html

I thought this was an interesting site.

[Rex]

1. True, the can go where no man or woman can go.

[Lucinda]

2. It is an interesting site. TY!

I wonder why they didn't do this sooner...?