1st robot into Fukushima reactor stalls, but gets some data

I get the feeling that original robot has got stuck and no new robot is there to rescue/remove/replace it....!

The robot had been intended for only one use because of the high radiation levels.

Wow. How many robots will they burn through over the next few decades?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/food-from-fukushima-could-be-hitting-britains-shelves-through-legal-safety-loophole-10174298.html

Don't worry! everything is perfectly safe and we are in complete control.

1st robot into Fukushima reactor stalls

Does it run on gasoline?

@jerseyboy

Years ago robots successfully worked inside ruined Chernobyl plant. They collected data in conditions of high radiation levels.

Robot stalls ? That's nothing, the government have been stalking since day one of the disaster.

Every other news report (outside of Japan) is reporting that the robot "died" and it's a sign of bad news.

Funny how reports INSIDE Japan paint this as generally GOOD news.

The difficulty of operating robots in such an environment are tremendous.

Other news sources say the radiation level in the container vessel was 10 Sv/hour. A man is likely to die in 6 minutes there.

Pretty soon that hallway will be choked with radioactive robots.

Years ago robots successfully worked inside ruined Chernobyl plant. They collected data in conditions of high radiation levels.

Yamashi -- so what? If Japan keeps building them to throw away after one use each, this is gonna get pretty silly.

Gah ! Edit function please (stalling, not stalking)

Every other news report (outside of Japan) is reporting that the robot "died" and it's a sign of bad news.

Because they want to please simple-minded people with big words like "died", "failed", etc. Unless the information in this article is false, I don't see why it should have been written any other way.

I heard the last transmission from the robot was "danger, Will Robinson, danger..." The engineers are still trying to decipher what that means.

One of my serious pet peeves about the state of industrial research in Japan at the moment. How many millions of dollars have been wasted on developing low-brow robots such as Aibo, ASIMO, the new robot at Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank and a host of other pointless projects. Again, as I have said on previous occasions, one of the greatest tragedies of this who sorry Fukushima disaster is that Japan's industrial might has been found wanting in terms of the technologies its needs to respond.

Furthermore, on this occasion the robot in question apparently failed on its first deployment. That raises serious questions regarding the whole R&D process. What sort of environment did they develop this snake for? Also, failure might be acceptable in the short term, but that fact that this now non-recoverable robot is jamming one of the few access ports is a serious headache. Somebody really needs to kick a few heads to make sure that such embarrassing episodes don't happen again.

Japan's robot arch is going a different way.

No that easy to make some electronics radiation proof or every of the world would have done it.

Japanesese research is along androids and human interfaces. right now there are like 18 generations of Asimov with increasing abilities as well as

Add all the robotot wearable exo skeletons let I which might fin their way into combat armors add all the robot research together and you might get a robot jox or similar in in

Only three hours into its 10-hr mission and it failed to respond, is how the BBC described it.

Of course how much lead plating do you need to harden against the radiation insidide Fukushima, won' be very mobile.

UAW, Drones, etc are hardened against ECM warfare

We used to lease an Asimov and each generation needed retraining.

Either way such a robot won't be cheap and need s to be tested in increasing radiation fields.

@jerseyboy "this is gonna get pretty silly"

They were able to make robots for work under conditions of radiation (Komatsu) and delivered them to Soviets. Those robots worked in Chernobyl plant after disaster. Why they unable to make robots with similar protection now ?

Chernobyl. Dropped in radiation soon after the core exploded. Fukyshma and Chernobyl are very different CScenario and Situations.

Chernobyl is still considered the No.1 nuclear disaster.

This is interesting. I hope these robots succeed (finally a seriously good use compared to may of the cute demonstrations). I don't have anything against the demonstrations, but this is wonderful putting it into perspective. These robots may just save human life.