Scorpion Robot Will Venture Into Fukushima Next Month
Scorpion RobotToshibaInstead of a stinger, this robot has a camera on its tail.It’s been over four years since an earthquake and tsunami devastated much of Japan's Pacific coast and left the Fukushima nuclear power plant a hulking dangerous wreck. Four years, and investigators are still trying to get a good look at the dangerous nuclear fuel left inside the three reactors that melted down (last year fuel rods were removed from a fourth reactor building that hadn't suffered as much damage).Enter the robots. Robots were initially deployed right after the disaster making note of dangerous radiation levels and in the years that followed, other robots began helping with preliminary clean-up. Earlier this year, a snake-shaped robot entered one of the reactor’s containment vessels (where the fuel is kept), only to die after 3 hours unable to cope with the radiation, and unable to pinpoint the fuel.Now,...