Fukushima Robot Operator Tells His Story

An anonymous reader writes "An anonymous robot operator at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant has kept a blog describing in candid detail his day-to-day life at the crippled facility, including robot training exercises and actual radiation-survey and clean-up missions. The blog was recently deleted, but some copies existed around the web and IEEE Spectrum has translated and published portions of it in English. The blog shows that although the operators use remote-controlled robots, they have to work in areas of high radiation, using protective gear and shielded trucks. They also rely on a great deal of improvisation, and there have been a few incidents that put the robot missions at risk."

Comments

Tepco, Japan and the robots

[hcs_$reboot]

Until March 2011, in our minds, Japan was the leading country when it comes to robots (remember all these Sony exhibitions...).

I cannot help but remember the Tepco wait-and-see attitude after the March 11 tsunami: we were all wondering
- why do they send people instead of robots to work within the power plant perimeter?
- why Tepco doesn't manage to have an army of robots ready to intervene?
- why Tepco took that much time to require international help in this regard?

However, I'm afraid the problem is not only technical.
In these huge Japanese organizations decisions taken at the highest level are often based on a kind of "event grid".
When the "event" matches a deja-vu scenario, or a well-known anticipated situation, the solution will be implemented fast and clean.
But when an unexpected event arises, an incredibly slow and possibly inadequate response is likely to be given.

I always thought "this is Japan - like it or leave it...". But when it comes to radiation in a power plant, I worry.

Re:Tepco, Japan and the robots

[antifoidulus]

Actually the problems are largely technical. The plant was designed to be serviced by humans. Even the most humanoid robots are still incredibly inflexible and thus it is incredibly difficult to get robots into a lot of the places in the plant, let alone operate a lot of the equipment. Furthermore, even with the most advanced robots, there are still latencies involved with the video feed, input response, etc. If they could do it all with robots they would, but they cannot.

Re:Tepco, Japan and the robots

[lloydchristmas759]

Actually, most integrated circuits don't work well when exposed to radiations. They provoke single-event upsets, which can, for instance, turn a 0 into a 1 in a register or a SRAM. ECC or parity check can help mitigating the risk, but they will not suffice. That's why the semiconductor industry proposes "space-grade" components which are radiation hardened. Unfortunately, these components are about 10x more expensive than their commercial-grade versions and only a tiny fraction of what's available in commercial grade is also available in space grade.

Re:Tepco, Japan and the robots

[subreality]

They could have gotten by with consumer-grade parts. There's no substitute for rad-hardened parts on satellites because launching another is very expensive, but that wasn't the case here.

In Fukushima, they could have done what hundreds of hobbyists do: Run down to Radio Shack, get a cheap toy helicopter, strap a camera to it. This is all analog tech, so there's no OS to crash if the circuits pick up some noise, as long as it's not so much nose that the thing fries entirely - and even that would give you a pretty useful bit of information.

Possible failure scenarios:

• * Helicopter fails when it gets close and drops to the ground. Solution: Get another helicopter.
• * Helicopter goes haywire and crashes headfirst into the spent fuel pool. Solution: This building is already blown right the fuck up; the mechanical damage is utterly irrelevant, and worst case, the li-poly batteries might slightly contaminate the water. Deal with that later. Get another helicopter.

Cost: Less than $1000 a pop for a really nice toy chopper and a very decent video camera.
Risks: Essentially none, as above.
Rewards: Nice up-close pictures instead of fast manned fly-bys hundreds of meters away.

Even if that plan gets vetoed, there are commercially available rad-hardened UAVs and ground recon bots. All they had to do was google it, call someone up, and get a handful flown out there. I'm sure they could get a few bots for $1M, or even for free given the publicity. That's essentially what the eventually did - why did they wait?

Re:Tepco, Japan and the robots

[subreality]

They had plane-type UAVs do some fly-bys at a hundred meters or so about two weeks in; the helicopter-type capable of close-up pictures weren't used for over a month.

I agree about the problems going in the building - there's no way a heli could do it. The PackBot is the right tool for the entry job. iRobot sent them about a week in, but TEPCO waited weeks more before using them. Training is the only excuse I can think of, and it's pretty thin: I'm sure someone experienced with them would have volunteered to work the first couple weeks until TEPCO employees were ready to go.

"A sense of humor"

[Anonymous Coward]

Depressing as it was to hear that the blog was removed, I confess that I loved the ending.

After paging through several stories of how exciting it is to learn new skills - even while opposed by dysfunctional management, impossible deadlines, the occasional mistake, and co-workers who insist on running over network cabling, the blog ends with:

You know we have a sense of humor right?

Yes, we do. Some things in the technology business - and in humor - are universal.

Thank you, Anonymous Robot Operator-san, for the work you and your team are doing, and for your diligence and honesty in documenting it.

Takeaway - more portable wireless....

[SuperKendall]

One thing I got out of reading the shorter summary, is that it might be a good idea to build a very compact robot whose sole purpose was to be positioned to relay wireless control signals - or else have wireless nodes that could be dropped behind the robot in a few places to extend range.

Really interesting.

Re:Shielding, relays, buildings

[subreality]

Inferring from TFA, the bots are able to run over WiFi, and one of the ways they increased range was by dragging an AP into the building. They can also run over an optical fiber - I'd assume that's also Ethernet, since it'd be silly to use a whole different technology when it's already controlled by 802 frames. I can't imagine why they couldn't scrounge some repeaters.

Shielding isn't too big a deal. You don't take that much damage from direct radiation unless you're standing near a large emitter... Just check your dosimeter before you set up camp. The much bigger hazard is inhaling particles of alpha-emitter which a) do a lot of damage when they're inside you and b) keep doing it for a long time. Fortunately, that's easy to handle with cleanroom-type particle filters.