Robots and Japan's nuclear disaster NukeBots

摘要

IN A foyer of the engineering department of Tohoku University in Sendai stands a handsome yellow robot with claws and caterpillar tracks. It was built at huge public expense to deal with nuclear disasters. But for all the good it is doing, it might as well be in a broom cupboard.According to Satoshi Tadokoro, a specialist in robotics at the university, it is one of a family of robots financed by the government after a nuclear accident in 1999 killed two workers in a uranium-reprocessing facility. The robots can perform emergency work when radiation levels are too high for humans. Useful, you might think, especially now. Instead, one ended up at a children's summer camp.