Your Own Mecha

BJH writes "A Japanese company by the unfortunate name of tmsuk has just announced the world's largest robot capable of carrying a person - the 3.5m tall, 5 ton T52 Enryu HyperRescueRobot. Their product site is in Japanese, but here's a few fun facts: it's 10m wide with its arms fully outstretched, is powered by an onboard water-cooled three cylinder direct injection diesel engine, has a maximum speed of 3Km/h, and carries seven 680,000-pixel CCD cameras with a separate monitor for each camera. If no whiny 14-year-olds are available to pilot it, it can be remotely controlled (with a dummy plug in the cockpit, presumably)."

Comments

Old idea.

[Samuel Duncan]

Already after WW II in the late 1940ies there were the first mech projects floating around. We had basically everything you need: Diesel engines, decent valves from submarine technology for the hydraulic system, the usual control stuff, sufficiently small electric motors etc. You don't need many electric amplifiers for the electric system because the main system would have to be hydraulic anyway. So vaccuum tubes would do.
However the projects were stomped due to several reasons:

1. Weight: these mechs would much too heavy for decent use (200 metric tons)
2. Stability: without high speed regulation these mech would just fall on the back when lifting something heavy or fire an anti tank grenade.
3. Reliability: the hydraulic system was every prone to produce leaks and it wasn't even remotely bullet proof. A single foot soldier could take it out with an old WW I gun.

Re:what is this for?

[BJH]

It's intended for use in areas hit by natural disaster - earthquakes, for example. The name 'Enryu' could be translated as 'Helpful Dragon' (the 'en' is part of the Japanese word for 'rescue' or 'aid').

babelfish trans w/ random line breaks

[Anonymous Coward]

NEWS
Releasing new model rescue robot "T-52 support dragon" with fire fighting coming out first system (Inc.) the Kitakyushu city National Fire Prevention and Control Administra,
(Germany) fire fighting laboratory, the Kyoto university and others and development

Corporation (high main Yoichi Chief Executive Officer: below head office Kitakyushu city) 2004 January 11th (day), the Kitakyushu city National Fire Prevention and Control Administra and
the independent administrative corporate body fire fighting laboratory, Assistant Professors Kyoto university Yokokouzi the new model rescue robot "T-52 support dragon which was developed
(...)" at the Kitakyushu city fire fighting coming out first system which is held at the Kitakyushu city Moji Ku it released.

The "T-52 support dragon" in order to be able to execute the necessary job of real power at such as disaster actual place, total height approximately 3.45 m, at weight
approximately 5 t and worldwide biggest size, adopting hydraulic drive system for drive of the upper body and the like which possesses 2 arms.
The person boarding to the robot, either one of operation and the remote manipulation which utilizes the radio and the mobile communication device etc.
it can select according to circumstance.

The "T-52 support dragon" was developed for utilization development of the rescue robot it was formed by the member of "prevention of disasters robot development conference".
did the design production of the robot, the Kitakyushu city National Fire Prevention and Control Administra police/policing anti section emergency rescue section, adopted,
the opinion of the specialist of the fire fighting disaster relief robot engineering of
Assistant Professors Kyoto university Yokokouzi who does the research of the independent administrative corporate body fire fighting laboratory and the remote manipulation type robot etc.
which do the research of the rescue robot from stage of the design. Design went Takashi Satoshi Takahashi of the robot creator (the Kyoto university venture representation).

In addition, the Kyushu Institute of Technology which is the local university institution which does the research of the robot,
Fukuoka prefecture and Kitakyushu city of the Fukuoka prefecture industrial engineering center and the local self-governing community etc., also
foundation Fukuoka prefecture industrial technology promotion foundation participated.

Released as for the "T-52 support dragon" with the experimental model, to work actually, furthermore development improvement is needed with the latest fire fighting coming out first system.
Adjusting to intended purpose such as durability heat resistance, and improvement of work ability the schedule which keeps continuing development.