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Transforming Robot Gets Stuck In Fukushima Nuclear Reactor
An anonymous reader writes with more bad news for the people still dealing with the Fukushima nuclear accident. "The ability to change shape hasn't saved a robot probe from getting stuck inside a crippled Japanese nuclear reactor. Tokyo Electric Power will likely leave the probe inside the reactor housing at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex north of Tokyo after it stopped moving. On Friday, the utility sent a robot for the first time into the primary containment vessel (PCV) of reactor No. 1 at the plant, which was heavily damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan. 'The robot got stuck at a point two-thirds of its way inside the PCV and we are investigating the cause,' a Tokyo Electric spokesman said via email. The machine became stuck on Friday after traveling to 14 of 18 planned checkpoints."
This sounds like the beginning of a movie about sentient robots.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Here's how Optimus Prime got his superpowers!
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Lets not give him any ideas for another horrible Transformers movie...
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Oh, man, that has to be the best headline all year.
I for one welcome our new giant, transforming robotic overlords.
Why the hell haven't we been seeing stories about transforming robots yet?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
.... just send in another transforming robot to retrieve it.
They should have tied a rope on it to pull it out.
..next we hear from Japan, some crazy, 50 ft tall robot will be destroying Tokyo.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
They shouldjust force suicide and respwan at the last checkpoint
"Stuck" or "stopped by choice"? You make the call.
Irony... my catcha was "distress". :-)
That transforming robot was clearly a Decepticon in disguise and how is surely gathering all of the energy in Fukushima to convert to Energon for Megatron! Someone call the Autobots.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Forget about CPUs. At the dose rates dealt with in this case, even ordinary transistors have a tough time.
NHK has frequent brief stories on both their international tv channel and the web, but they seldom last more than a day on their front page, and the links usually die in two. So even though it's current, here's a wayback link.
http://web.archive.org/web/201...
Usually one thinks of possible long term harm from too much radiation exposure, but the levels seen by the bot cam apparently would cause death in about 40 minutes. I guess no one will be going in after that dead bot anytime soon.
The robot isn't the type we usual think of. It's more of a mobile snake camera. I think the light output goes through an optical cable. Camera image sensors don't do well in radiation. It's reminds me of how some of the craft monitoring the sun have sensors go nuts when there is a proton storm. Some feeds just get a burst of firefly-like snow. It's almost funny when one of the video feeds shows the sun jumping around and doing a 360 degree spin (as the spacecraft briefly loses lock on the stars and does a roll).
Ever seen the bumper sticker "Eat shit, a million flies can't be wrong"? That about sums up my feelings on the issue.
Could not agree more. Clearly many folks were entertained but wow those were some bad movies.
I understand the motive, but that doesn't change the fact that they took a moderately interesting franchise
Moderately interesting franchise? Maybe if you have rose colored glasses from your youth. Some of the comics were kinda-sorta ok stories but none of it was particularly good. I grew up with transformers - they were the big thing during part of my youth. But try watching any of the animation as an adult. It's complete crap designed solely to market toys to kids. Seriously, it's unwatchable. If anything the Michael Bay movies are better but that is the very definition of damning with faint praise. I saw the first movie out of nostalgia and have seen bits of the later ones but they were definitely not good movies. I'm sure someone could do something interesting with it but it won't be Michael Bay. Some cool special effects and Megan Fox's ass are not enough to make a movie worth watching.
Something feebles watching over you
Comin' from the pipe!
And there's no way it can move
Prepare to gripe!
There'll be no place to run
When your caught in checkpoint 14
Of the evil PCV
Transformers! (moves a bit, then dies)
Transformers! (leave the probe inside)
Good people go to bed earlier.
no! come back to us!
Don't worry, a billion self-driven cars will never make an error. We've thought of everything. Because that's how engineering works. No errors, all the time. Unless it's turning a corner or something--
All that I can think of is poor WALL-E, collecting and crushing bits of melted and rehardened core into tiny cubes and stacking them for storage - until the stack reaches criticality...
... unless you're in Japan, then 78% is abject failure and cause for banishment from the family.
It would be nice if there were some images of exactly what kind of environment it's working in. If its having to struggle past mountains of debris and partially collapsed hallways its understandable that it would get stuck. If it got hung up on a set of stairs with a few ceiling tiles on them or something similarly unimpressive Tokyo Electric has added to my perception of their ineptitude.
and I was already thinking of the robot "mutating" and thus transforming :D
Did they try hitting it with a little carb cleaner?
The same engineers that designed my Toyota. They thought it would be a good idea to have to replace rear signal lights by remove a panel inside the car and reaching in about 18 inches to TRY to turn the bulb socket in order to remove it. Obviously, the were hoping to sell robots like this to people who needed to replace their turn signals. At least I am not bitter about it.
geez, folks, a 1/16 inch steel wire cable along the umbilical would allow the robot herders to pull the clinker back and see what burned up. instead, the Gang That Can't Think Straight just sends haywire crap in and hopes to beat the odds and the physics. this is also a job for a vidicon, tubes, and light bulbs, not solid-state stuff. or considering the heat, an image dissector.
50 years from now, these guys will be repeating the same sophomoric mistakes and shrugging their shoulders.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
'nuff said.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Attention People of Tokyo!!!!!
Baby Godzilla now has a toy to play with.
From TFA:
the remote-controlled robot is 60 centimeters long and can be configured into a form resembling the letter I as well as one resembling the numeral 3.
Perhaps tomorrows episode of Sesame Street will have Godzilla as a guest star.
Brought to you by the letter "I" and the number "3".
the umbilical has the strength to be used as pullback. It is snagged, just as your imagined 1/16 inch steel wire might be. Maybe the founding member of the Gang That Can't Think Straight is in your bathroom mirror
It appear that the robot is only capable of forming the letter I and E at this time, so future communications with it will be difficult.
I for one welcome our new Radioactive Transforming Robotic Overlords.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
geez, folks, a 1/16 inch steel wire cable along the umbilical would allow the robot herders to pull the clinker back and see what burned up.
Cute! Name one thing in the real world that would have travelled along 14 checkpoints without going around a few curves and hard corners.
Cute! Name one thing in the real world that would have travelled along 14 checkpoints without going around a few curves and hard corners.
swschrad's thought processes?
This robot moved along a tortuous path, you can just pull it out, it has to move itself back out. They knew there was a good chance it would fail at some point, yet they accomplished most of the planned inspections so it was not a complete fail by any means, just the way the press likes to portray it. They have a more durable bot on the way.
This really doesn't even qualify as news, IMHO.
Radiation. Our electronics and robotics thrive on miniturization however that is not useful when you're dealing with radiation. You want really thick circuits. You want something that can be swiss cheesed by the radiation all day and all night for years on end and still work.
Here is my first idea:
Have as little circuitry in the robot as possible. Instead run most of that stuff to a substation by wire that will get close to but not actually enter the reactor. Ideally, the only thing I'd put in the robot would be the literal sensors, the literal motors, the structure that is the body of the robot, and EVERYTHING else would be remote to the robot and thus largely safe from the radiation.
So whatever controller boards for the servos etc... none of that in the robot. All of it instead at the other end of a wire.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
For example, their record on handling radioactive water has been a list of miserable failures. Briefly, there were three different systems used to treat the water being used to cool the reactors: a French system from AREVA, a system from Kurion, a startup based in Orange County California, and a system built by Hiatachi/Tobshba. The timeline is complex, but both the French and Japanese systems broke almost immediately when they went into full scale operation. The Kurion system was more reliable, but it was not used as the primary cleanup platform.
The muon imaging that has been used to verify core meltdowns was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and LLNL proposed that they work directly with TEPCO. Instead TEPCO worked with the US company that ended up with the equipment after the LLNL development project ended. All the press releases describe the imaging as being done by Hiatachi, who ran the detector in Japan. Even so, there are actually two different muon imaging systems in place, and one of them is directly from LLNL. The results from the second LLNL detector have not been officially announced yet.
Outside Japan, experts were not optimistic about the ice wall project to keep ground water from entering the reactor buildings. They spent a lot of time, effort and money and then had to give up.
I can only speculate, but I think they are very reluctant to use US technology unless they can rebrand it as Japanese. I think they want to show that they are better at high tech the the US.
They may match or beat the US in industrial applications, but because of DARPA investment in disaster and military technology, the US has more robust robot technology for chaotic real world conditions. Just look at ASIMO vs Boston Dynamics PETMAN, ATLAS or BIG DOG. The Boston Dynamics robots all have videos where they are being shoved and kicked and stay upright. It's obvious that one good shove and ASIMO would end up on the floor and might be badly damaged.
It just seems strange that there has not been more collaboration between Japan and the rest of the world for dealing with the Fukushima disaster. DARPA has been working on robots for HASMAT environment for a long time and yet they have no presence at Fukushima. It seems that Japanese ethnocentrism and pride is now making a bad situation more difficult.
Why is Snark Required?
We lost a great comrade, but gained new ones. Thank you, all of you. You honor us with your bravery.
Your spelling of the word "parochialism" is "perocial".
I would suggest using hydraulics and fiberoptics. Dont bother with active circuits at all. If all you want to do is look and grab, go really old school. Dont use amplifiers when two tin cans and a string will survive the radiation.
I saw a documentary awhile back, they had floated a probe down there. So much radiation the cameras kept showing bright spots all over, then the probe died after 10 minutes. This plant will be an environmental disaster for thousands of years.
Even among terminally-ill patients, you may have difficulties finding someone willing to die from acute radiation poisoning. From what I have read, it is a rather painful way to die.
Just look at all the old people in Japan who volunteered in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, to spare others who were younger.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The Fukuppy: http://www.newser.com/story/17...