Fukushima Robot Operator Tells His Story

An anonymous reader writes "An anonymous robot operator at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant has kept a blog describing in candid detail his day-to-day life at the crippled facility, including robot training exercises and actual radiation-survey and clean-up missions. The blog was recently deleted, but some copies existed around the web and IEEE Spectrum has translated and published portions of it in English. The blog shows that although the operators use remote-controlled robots, they have to work in areas of high radiation, using protective gear and shielded trucks. They also rely on a great deal of improvisation, and there have been a few incidents that put the robot missions at risk."

Tepco, Japan and the robots

[hcs_$reboot]

Until March 2011, in our minds, Japan was the leading country when it comes to robots (remember all these Sony exhibitions...).

I cannot help but remember the Tepco wait-and-see attitude after the March 11 tsunami: we were all wondering
- why do they send people instead of robots to work within the power plant perimeter?
- why Tepco doesn't manage to have an army of robots ready to intervene?
- why Tepco took that much time to require international help in this regard?

However, I'm afraid the problem is not only technical.
In these huge Japanese organizations decisions taken at the highest level are often based on a kind of "event grid".
When the "event" matches a deja-vu scenario, or a well-known anticipated situation, the solution will be implemented fast and clean.
But when an unexpected event arises, an incredibly slow and possibly inadequate response is likely to be given.

I always thought "this is Japan - like it or leave it...". But when it comes to radiation in a power plant, I worry.

Re:Tepco, Japan and the robots

[antifoidulus]

Actually the problems are largely technical. The plant was designed to be serviced by humans. Even the most humanoid robots are still incredibly inflexible and thus it is incredibly difficult to get robots into a lot of the places in the plant, let alone operate a lot of the equipment. Furthermore, even with the most advanced robots, there are still latencies involved with the video feed, input response, etc. If they could do it all with robots they would, but they cannot.

Takeaway - more portable wireless....

[SuperKendall]

One thing I got out of reading the shorter summary, is that it might be a good idea to build a very compact robot whose sole purpose was to be positioned to relay wireless control signals - or else have wireless nodes that could be dropped behind the robot in a few places to extend range.

Really interesting.