While the whole world is watching a nuclear disaster in Japan, keeps repeating a question: where are the robots?
Crisis in Fukushima Daiichi plant gets together at least two of the three requirements for the use of robots, as stated in the famous "dirty, dangerous and boring". The Japanese are well known for their technological prowess and their enthusiasm for all things robotic. They use Snakebot to find victims among urban debris left by the tsunami. Why do we not see images artistry downs plucky little unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) charging into highly radioactive areas?
Thoroughly covers the history was amazing variety of responses. Some of the reasons may have implications for the civil adoption UGV technology. Here's a quick overview of many MEDIA speculation:
1) Japanese have cultural prejudice against robots doing certain jobs. Originally appearing in Reuters report, this idea has been widely distributed. Usually this is illustrated by an anecdote about human operators, still working elevators, a phenomenon is easily observed by foreign journalists, who have never left their hotels. This idea is not to explain why the Japanese military did not suffer the damage. According to IEEE Spectrum they asked take PackBot 510 and iRobot 710 Warrior of for use on plant crippled.
Fukushima Daiichi Plant 2 is too old to be "robot." Developed in the 1970s, it was just not built with robots in mind. This idea sounds plausible, but I'm a little suspicious of it. Robots have been used in purification of three mile island and Chernobyl, built between primitive robots. If robots are not useful, why the Japanese military to ask to borrow them form iRobot?
3 Japanese people are so confident in the safety of their power they thought emergency cleaning robots are unnecessary. CNET reported that factory owners, Tokyo electric power company (Tepco), "....never a situation in which will be knocked out of the primary and backup power for coastal plant. "Professor Satoshi Tadokoro, Director, International Institute of rescue systems posted at the Center for Robot-Assisted search and rescue (CRASAR) Web site that" power plant company noted that they do not need such robots, because their nuclear installations will never have an accident and are safe. " Nevertheless, the idea that the Japanese did not develop robots for use in nuclear accidents does not stand completely, because ...
4) Japanese development of robots for nuclear accidents. CNET reports that after the accident in 1999 when two died from radiation, Japan spent millions to develop robots for nuclear leaks. CNET speculates that we haven't seen them because they were "lazy" prototype.
5) Japanese using robots. IEEE Spectrum, as well as the report that the Japanese were using DVICE radiation control robot that sounds like a "prototype" says CNET has been postponed. It's a bit confusing because when, as a representative of Tepco was asked about the use of bots on the site, he replied: "I don't know that we have any such device" (source: Reuters). Perhaps this apparent contradiction occurs because this bot has not been deployed up to 7 days after onset of the disaster.
So at least one UGV is used. Obviously, it's too little too late. Why does not exist anymore? Why not Japan follow on its commitment to the fleet of unmanned systems, which can actually fix things and not only radiation monitor?
Best explanation I've seen so far is provided by Dr. Robin Murphy on the Web site CRASAR: money. Commenting on remarks by Prof. Tadokoro, he writes, "emergencies outside of normal speed so hard money in anticipation of them," it is difficult to keep this rainy day sharing this view, William Slaeton, who wrote in Salon, "energy companies want cheap robots that can replace manual and always helpful. They don't want robots, more equipped to handle the unlikely nightmare scenarios ". Slaeton differs from the French, who created a fleet of robots to handle nuclear accidents.
Japanese attitude reminds me of the military thinking of unmanned systems. They didn't build a lot of robots, until the current war absolutely forced them to do so. The problem with this is that by the time absolutely, you know what you need robots in nuclear holocaust, it's too late.
As a result of partial melt-down in Japanese factory virtually every country in the world will be evaluated on their nuclear programme. It's the perfect time for unmanned systems community to talk about the need for bots that can hardly help "nightmare scenarios", the Japanese suffered a terrible crash. It would be another disaster doesn't learn from its mistakes.
William Finn writes about rugged mobile computers, unmanned systems, biometrics, battlefield communications, CRIBS, ISR and other related topics for AMREL corporate blog. AMREL makes operator control units for PackBots are robots in Iraq and Afghanistan. To see the latest on unmanned systems technology defense and other issues, please visit http://computers.amrel.com/media-room/blog.
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