Here are two Monirobo robotic machines — radiation-hard, 2.4 km/hr, 600 kg robots, recently arrived on site:
These probably aren’t very good at exploring wrecked buildings, viewing fuel storage pools obscured explosion debris, sampling smoke plumes rising from (?), etc.
Here’s a Parrot AR.Drone — iPhone controlled, resistant to multiply-lethal radiation doses [update: > 10 times the human -lethal dose; see comments], and available for $300 from Amazon:
Parrot’s-eye view from on high:
Exploring a warehouse:
They can of course carry lights for exploring dark places:
Parrot drones would be useful.
They haven’t been used.
It seems that our civilization has difficulty recognizing and applying its own abilities, even when they are concrete, available, and widely known.
(As you may know, Japan has displayed a special sort of organizational paralysis in this crisis, but wouldn’t it be surprising if “toys” like these were used in an incident managed by Very Serious People anywhere in the world?)
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The range on a parrot on average is 50 meters from the controller (I phone) and it has a 12 minute flight time. I guess with the right equipment you can extend the range of the controller, but the battery is going to put some real limits on what you can do.
I’d had that reaction too, but see what they do in the videos. The battery life is a constraint, but a lot of information can be gathered in a few minutes. Questions like “Is there water in the spent-fuel pool?” and “Where’s the smoke coming from?” could probably be answered almost immediately. Instead, they’ve remained objects of international speculation and fear for days.
— Eric
I was unaware that a radiation hardened http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening version was available! Be sure to rush one to Japan, stat!
Hi, bungo — Thanks for the Wikipedia link. As the article says, “normal commercial-grade chips can withstand between 50 and 100 gray (5 and 10 krad)”. That’s about 10 to 20 times the human-lethal dose, and short flights mean short exposure times. At a cost of < $1,000 apiece, of course, Parrot drones are quite expendable.
No need for a rad-hard version, unless you want to park a Parrot somewhere really nasty.
— Eric
Thank you for asking that. I’ve been asking the same since the Tsunami hit.
In 1986, at Chernobyl we learned how robots had to be replaced with biobots. It’s 25 years later, and we don’t have a rad hard Parrot? Or a rad hard Packbot?
Similarly, I also don’t understand why there isn’t any part of that plant not covered by multiple webcams with 168 hour hour battery backup.
I’ve asked at several websites run by nuclear engineers, is rad hard really that difficult? No one has answered.
I don’t understand how we can consider it a success that the reactor endured a greater earthquake and tsunami then it was designed for — what happened was an enormous failure of determining requirements for an engineering project. The change from a multi-billion dollar asset to a multi-billion dollar liability is not a success, good luck, or good engineering.
I had just about bought into the notion that it’s 2011, the nuke industry has changed, it’s time to start building again.
It doesn’t really need to be “rad-hard” – worst case it fails and dies permanently. So what ? It’s still cheaper to have a parrot die permanently every hour than it is to *rent* one of the “industrial” robots for an hour.
The flight-time could be more of a problem, I guess.
How about a little zeppelin, carrying a camera, with a tether for power and information transmission. I don’t understand why Japan isn’t utilizing better its awesome engineering talent in Fukushima.
FWIW: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9215346/U.S._to_send_radiation_hardened_robots_to_Japan
A day before I wrote my reply above, iRobot sent four robots to the site, and if I understand the article, they US is sending more robots, these described as rad hard.
While I guess that’s a good thing, it does make me ask once again, given the costs and dangers associated with every nuclear plant, how come every nuclear plant is not already stocked with rad hard robots?
Ya the above post speaks right. Many above like machines could be useful for early recovering . The help of other researchers and related business like Industrial chemical manufacturer & industrial chemical supplier should also be taken there.
Ya its quit useful to take the help of those useful machines . More over their many nanotechnology related materials like There are many materials related to nanotechnology like silicon nanopowder, nanoparticles & nanotubes which could useful in development of many other powerful and small machines.
That is a very good question, one that should be being asked to a lot of people. I wrote about the potential uses of the Parrot and other quadrotors over at H+ quite some time ago: http://hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/fly-your-pov-around-your-own-personal-quadcopter
Not only would quadrotors make excellent robotic probes, properly equipped, they would make excellent Remote Telepresence Units, enabling scientists to study the reactor in complete safety as if they were physically present.
I was thinking the same. However, the radiation resistance of 10 times the lethal dose of humans is not very much, considering a wrecked nuclears reactor environment. Of course they can make it more resistant if they use custom made quadrotors, though.
First I’d like to say that I am guy from Europe who moved to Japan six years ago and I still live and work here; the fact that I live in Japan of course does NOT make me more knowledgeable, but as I am affected by the Fukushima disaster as everyone here in this country, I did my share of reading about this matter and researching about it as good as I can.
Why did they not use this kind of quadcopters? Well, maybe they *did* actually use them. But TEPCO, the company resonsible for the Fukushima disaster, has absolutely no interest in telling the public, or even the Japanese government, what is going on in the reactors. TEPCO was known in Japan even *before* the earthquake for a series of tax frauds, faked security reports and lies. They are corrupt. After the meltdown they lied to the public again and again, and still do. Sure, Japan belongs to the “free world” but you wouldn’t believe some of the things that are going on here. 60.000 people can demonstrate in the middle of Tokyo and there are clashes with the police, and what will the state-funded TV stations report about it? Nothing, zero. They simply pretend that there was no demonstration. Just as TEPCO and the Japanese government now simply pretend that there is no nuclear desaster anymore.
Some day the first Fukushima-related cancer cases and sick children will pop up in the statistics, at that point in the future the responsible politicians and TEPCO managers will all be retired already with their nice fat bonus checks for “solving” the Fukushima crisis.
So, what I am trying to say, technological gadgets like flying drones, robots, and many other gadgetry would be very useful in managing the Fukushima accident, and there are many other areas where technology could help people in Japan who are affected by the desaster. But the problem is this:
Suppressing information about the meltdown is cheaper than cleaning up the meltdown. Robots and drones would make it clear how severe the meltdown is. The governmant and TEPCO would then need to act. This would cost them literally trillions of yen and they do not want that. Therefore, no drones or robots. It’s that simple. Pretending that the problem is already solved is the cheapest way out for them.
I am very much looking forward to your new book, and am wondering if you will also touch these kind of topics? I.e. that it is not only important how technology is developed and available, but also that there need to be structures of power which are free of curruption so that the technologies can and will be used?
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