While the whole world has been watching the nuclear disaster in Japan, one question keeps reoccurring: Where are the robots?
The crisis in the Fukushima Daiichi power plant meets at least two of the three requirements for the use of robots as outlined by the famous dictum, "dirty, dull, and dangerous." The Japanese are well known for their technological prowess and their enthusiasm for all things robotic. They are using a Snakebot to search for survivors amid the urban debris left by the tsunami. Why aren't we seeing images of plucky, little Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) charging into highly radioactive areas?
For such a thoroughly covered story, there have been a surprisingly wide variety of answers. Some of the reasons given may have implications for the civilian adoption of the UGV technology. Here is a brief summary of the myriad media speculations:
1) Japanese have a cultural bias against robots doing certain types of work. Originally appearing in a Reuters report, this idea has been widely circulated. It is usually illustrated by an anecdote about human operators still working elevators, a phenomenon easily observed by foreign reporters who never leave their hotels. This idea fails to explain why the Japanese military do not suffer this prejudice. According to IEEE Spectrum, they've asked to borrow a PackBot 510 and a Warrior 710 from iRobot for use at the crippled plant.
2) The Fukushima Daiichi power plant is too old to be "robot capable." Designed in 1970s, it was simply not built with robots in mind. This idea sounds plausible, but I'm a little suspicious of it. Robots were used in the clean-up of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, both built in the age of primitive robots. If robots are not useful, why did the Japanese military ask to borrow them form iRobot?
3) The Japanese were so confident of the safety of their power plants that they thought emergency clean-up robots were unnecessary. CNET reported that the plant's owners, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), "....never imagined a situation in which the main and backup power to the coastal plant would be knocked out." Prof. Satoshi Tadokoro, director the International Rescue Systems Institute wrote in Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) website that "Power plant companies mentioned that they did not need such robots because their nuclear plants never have accidents and are safe." However, the idea that Japanese didn't develop robots for use in nuclear accidents doesn't completely hold up, because...
4) The Japanese did develop robots for use in nuclear accidents. CNET reports that after an accident in 1999, when two workers died from radiation, Japan spent millions developing robots to deal with nuclear leaks. CNET speculates that we haven't seen them, because they were a "shelved prototype."
5) The Japanese are using robots. Both IEEE Spectrum and DVICE report that the Japanese are using a radiation-monitoring robot that sounds like the "shelved prototype" described by CNET. This is a little confusing, because when as spokesman for Tepco was asked about the use of robots at the plant site, he replied, "I don't know that we have any such devices" (source: Reuters). Perhaps, this apparent contradiction occurred, because this robot wasn't deployed until 7 days after the disaster began.
So, at least one UGV is being utilized. Clearly this is too little and too late. Why aren't there more? Why didn't Japan follow through on its commitment to field a fleet of unmanned systems that could actually fix things, and not just monitor radiation?
The best explanation that I have seen so far is the one given by Dr. Robin Murphy on the CRASAR website: money. Commenting on Prof. Tadokoro remarks, he writes, "Emergencies are outside the normal so it's hard to speed money in anticipation of them, hard to save for that rainy day." Echoing this sentiment is William Slaeton, who wrote in Salon that, "Power companies want cheap robots that can replace workers and are always useful. They don't want robots expensively equipped to handle unlikely nightmare scenarios." Slaeton contrasts this with the French who have built a fleet of robots for the purpose of dealing with nuclear accidents.
The Japanese attitude reminds me of the military's mind-set about unmanned systems. They didn't build many robots until the current wars absolutely forced them to do so. The problem with this viewpoint is that by the time you absolutely know that you need robots in a nuclear disaster, it's too late.
In the wake of the partial melt-down at the Japanese plant, virtually every country in the world is evaluating their nuclear program. This is the perfect time for the unmanned systems community to speak up about the need for robots that can assist in "unlikely nightmare scenarios." The Japanese have suffered a horrible disaster. It would be another disaster not to learn from their mistakes.
The crisis in the Fukushima Daiichi power plant meets at least two of the three requirements for the use of robots as outlined by the famous dictum, "dirty, dull, and dangerous." The Japanese are well known for their technological prowess and their enthusiasm for all things robotic. They are using a Snakebot to search for survivors amid the urban debris left by the tsunami. Why aren't we seeing images of plucky, little Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) charging into highly radioactive areas?
For such a thoroughly covered story, there have been a surprisingly wide variety of answers. Some of the reasons given may have implications for the civilian adoption of the UGV technology. Here is a brief summary of the myriad media speculations:
1) Japanese have a cultural bias against robots doing certain types of work. Originally appearing in a Reuters report, this idea has been widely circulated. It is usually illustrated by an anecdote about human operators still working elevators, a phenomenon easily observed by foreign reporters who never leave their hotels. This idea fails to explain why the Japanese military do not suffer this prejudice. According to IEEE Spectrum, they've asked to borrow a PackBot 510 and a Warrior 710 from iRobot for use at the crippled plant.
2) The Fukushima Daiichi power plant is too old to be "robot capable." Designed in 1970s, it was simply not built with robots in mind. This idea sounds plausible, but I'm a little suspicious of it. Robots were used in the clean-up of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, both built in the age of primitive robots. If robots are not useful, why did the Japanese military ask to borrow them form iRobot?
3) The Japanese were so confident of the safety of their power plants that they thought emergency clean-up robots were unnecessary. CNET reported that the plant's owners, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), "....never imagined a situation in which the main and backup power to the coastal plant would be knocked out." Prof. Satoshi Tadokoro, director the International Rescue Systems Institute wrote in Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) website that "Power plant companies mentioned that they did not need such robots because their nuclear plants never have accidents and are safe." However, the idea that Japanese didn't develop robots for use in nuclear accidents doesn't completely hold up, because...
4) The Japanese did develop robots for use in nuclear accidents. CNET reports that after an accident in 1999, when two workers died from radiation, Japan spent millions developing robots to deal with nuclear leaks. CNET speculates that we haven't seen them, because they were a "shelved prototype."
5) The Japanese are using robots. Both IEEE Spectrum and DVICE report that the Japanese are using a radiation-monitoring robot that sounds like the "shelved prototype" described by CNET. This is a little confusing, because when as spokesman for Tepco was asked about the use of robots at the plant site, he replied, "I don't know that we have any such devices" (source: Reuters). Perhaps, this apparent contradiction occurred, because this robot wasn't deployed until 7 days after the disaster began.
So, at least one UGV is being utilized. Clearly this is too little and too late. Why aren't there more? Why didn't Japan follow through on its commitment to field a fleet of unmanned systems that could actually fix things, and not just monitor radiation?
The best explanation that I have seen so far is the one given by Dr. Robin Murphy on the CRASAR website: money. Commenting on Prof. Tadokoro remarks, he writes, "Emergencies are outside the normal so it's hard to speed money in anticipation of them, hard to save for that rainy day." Echoing this sentiment is William Slaeton, who wrote in Salon that, "Power companies want cheap robots that can replace workers and are always useful. They don't want robots expensively equipped to handle unlikely nightmare scenarios." Slaeton contrasts this with the French who have built a fleet of robots for the purpose of dealing with nuclear accidents.
The Japanese attitude reminds me of the military's mind-set about unmanned systems. They didn't build many robots until the current wars absolutely forced them to do so. The problem with this viewpoint is that by the time you absolutely know that you need robots in a nuclear disaster, it's too late.
In the wake of the partial melt-down at the Japanese plant, virtually every country in the world is evaluating their nuclear program. This is the perfect time for the unmanned systems community to speak up about the need for robots that can assist in "unlikely nightmare scenarios." The Japanese have suffered a horrible disaster. It would be another disaster not to learn from their mistakes.
William Finn writes about rugged mobile computers, unmanned systems, biometrics, battlefield communications, COTS, ISR, and other related topics for the AMREL corporate blog. AMREL makes the Operator Control Units for the PackBots robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. To learn the latest about unmanned systems and other Defense technology issues,
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