The days of seeing Japan in the news because of the earthquake and subsequent disaster are long over as attention has turned to more recent problems around the globe, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t big challenges remaining in the country. There’s still the case of the Fukushima nuclear power plant and four unstable reactors to deal with.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which owns the Fukushima plant, is attempting to get things back to normal by using military robots provided by U.S. company iRobot. Due to the lack of communications in the area of the plant, these robots are being operated by individuals who are put in danger every day close by the reactors as they go about their clean-up tasks.
One of those operators decided to write a blog talking about his work, and it has proved very telling and informative about both the conditions at the plant and the robots themselves.
Working conditions are less than perfect. Long hours, ignored warnings, and the link to the robots during crucial clean-up work being put in jeopardy due to stupid decisions are all touched upon. We also get to learn about the limitations and advantages of each robot in this rather unique situation.
However, it now seems as though the blog has disappeared just as it started getting popular, suggesting someone at TEPCO found it and took action.
Although TEPCO may have had the site taken offline due to its less than positive review of the clean-up operation, many see it as a great loss due to the valuable information it contained concerning use of robots in such disaster areas.
It’s not often, thankfully, that we get a major nuclear disaster to deal with, so robot designers only have best guesses to go on. An operator using a robot in a real situation can provide crucial feedback as to how electronics and designs cope in these conditions. With information coming through official channels being far less than full disclosure, this operator was providing valuable insight that may otherwise be lost due to bureaucracy and company face saving.
As well as writing a blog, videos were created showing training exercises of the PackBot and Warrior robots being used. Unfortunately these have also gone from public view, but IEEE Spectrum managed to tie some snippets together for one summary video:
The identity of the blogger is unknown as he/she signed off simply as S.H. There is hope that the blog posts will return at some point in the future, or that the operator will come forward once his work is done to present his findings and help robot designers make better robots for these situations.