Robots Take Dangerous Jobs

YOKOHAMA, JAPAN -- While Sony's Aibo and any of the newest humanoid robots may be cute and draw attention, Japan's robot industry has a serious side that's on display this week at Robodex 2003 here.

A number of companies and universities are working on robot technology that's designed to either save lives or make life easier. Some are robots designed to perform jobs that are dangerous for humans, such as mine-clearance work.

"This robot is designed to dig the ground and explode mines. And it can do it with no electricity, so we can take it to very remote places, such as the inside of Afghanistan," said Naota Furihata, a student at Tokyo Institute of Technology, of the Mine Hand robot that he developed. The robot has been in development since April 2002 and is almost complete, he said.

Robots at Work

The Japanese government and several nongovernmental groups funded development of the machine and are now interested in taking it to Afghanistan to be used in actual mine-clearance work. Some of Furihata's fellow students also showed off mine-clearance robots at the exhibition. They included a remotely operated robot that can travel over dangerous ground and search out mines using a sensor mounted on a long arm.

Nearby, Chiba University also displayed several mine-clearance robots, including the Comet III, which weighs 1 ton. Considerably bigger and more complex than Furihata's machine, the robots walk on six legs in a spiderlike fashion and are designed to make the job of clearing mines considerably less dangerous. De-mining resulted in at least 500 deaths from 1996 to 2002, according to a database maintained by the Journal of Mine Action.

A humanoid robot developed as part of a Japanese public-private partnership demonstrated its ability to sit in a backhoe and operate it. The prototype HRP-2 is also designed to work in places dangerous for humans.

Shin Furukawa, director of corporate planning at robot-maker Tmsuk, underlined the suitability of robots for such work. In September 1999, he was in contact with the company that operated the Tokaimura Uranium processing plant when it suffered Japan's worst nuclear accident. Three workers were overexposed to radiation in the accident, and two died.

"I was in talking to the person at [plant operator] JOC who had a list of names in front of him with their ages and relationships," said Furukawa. "He basically had to choose who to send in to the plant. If we had a robot, we could have sent that in instead."

Robots in School

Universities are also spending time researching robotic technologies that can aid people in everyday tasks. Kanagawa Institute of Technology and the Science University of Tokyo are both showing off 'wearable robots.'

Still in the experimental stage, wearable robots are intended to be implemented as items of clothing with built-in robotic technology to enhance the strength of the wearer. For example, the enhanced clothing could enable a single nurse to lift patients out of bed and place them in wheelchairs, as demonstrated at Robodex using a prototype suit.

Less advanced but at the commercialization stage is Banryu from Tmsuk, a four-legged robot that acts as a digital watchdog. It monitors its surroundings, providing visual and audio links through a cell phone, and responding to remote commands. Matsushita Electric Works' Hospi is also designed to help people; it's targeted for use in hospitals, where it can transport documents or drugs between departments.