How Battle-Tested Robots Are Helping Out at Fukushima
Deep in the heart of the Fukushima nuclear plant, emissions from the damaged reactors are so intense that a fully suited hazmat crew would soak up a year’s worth of radiation after spending only 5 minutes in the area. Robots, however, can not only sift through debris and measure radioactivity in this hazardous zone, they can also stream live video back to humans, who monitor their every move from a safe distance. “Where humans can do the job, humans are doing the job,” says Bob Quinn, vice president of TALON operations at QinetiQ. But where the danger is too great, a suite of robots have taken over.At an April 15 event in Boston entitled “Robots to the Rescue,” Quinn joined Tim Trainer, iRobot’s vice president of operations of government and industrial robots, to explain how these machines are helping out in Japan. Though the two companies designed the robots primarily to assist soldiers in war zones, they quickly modified the machines to respond to the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that ravaged the Japanese coastline and overwhelmed the Fukushima nuclear reactor. Alterations and additions to these unmanned vehicles allow them to remove debris, map radiological hotspots and navigate inside the ruined reactor buildings.
iRobot outfitted its 510 PackBot with the company’s full hazmat kit: a collection of sensors rigged to detect environmental oxygen levels, temperature, gamma radiation, and hazardous materials and chemicals. With a base about the size of a carry-on suitcase, the relatively lightweight PackBot (between 48 and 60 pounds) can weave through wreckage while streaming live video and environmental data down hundreds of feet of fiber-optic cable. On the battlefield, PackBots are often used to neutralize bombs, but at Fukushima they are mainly used for surveillance and reconnaissance, Trainer says. “They provide the internal mapping of areas they operate in … they make way for heavier equipment.” As of this past weekend, the two PackBots at Fukushima had just made their way into the No. 3 reactor building and were reporting back extreme levels of radiation. According to The Japan Times, No. 3 showed between 28 and 57 millisieverts of radiation per hour (250 millisieverts is the maximum allowed per year for a reactor worker).
The PackBot’s heftier counterpart, the 710 Warrior, can barrel through refuse at 8 miles per hour. It can hoist as much as 200 pounds, which is useful when it comes to clearing out some of the heavier radioactive rubble. Both PackBot and Warrior are equipped with “flipper technology,” an extra set of teardrop-shaped wheels that can rotate 360 degrees, with the point of the teardrop shape acting as a pivot that propels the robots up flights of stairs.
QinetiQ’s contribution to the cleanup effort comes in three different forms: the TALON and the Dragon Runner, both surveillance and reconnaissance robots, and BOBCAT, a heavy-duty lifter approximately the size of a sidewalk plow. All three are remote controlled and operate at a distance between 1100 and 1400 meters (3608 to 4593 feet). The BOBCAT comes equipped with several attachments, including a forklift and a jackhammer—good for hauling stuff out of the way and smashing through more bulky debris, respectively.
QinetiQ trained 26 people from TEPCO, the Japanese power company in charge of Fukushima, to make use of the videos streaming in from all three QinetiQ robots to produce a multidirectional view of the debris being picked up by the BOBCAT. Quinn instructed the trainees to “use them as another set of eyes,” he says. “We told them to not only look at [the view from] your own BOBCAT … [but also to] look at the TALON screen, work as a team.” This allows the operators more refined handling of such materials as pipes, which the attachments in the BOBCAT’s tool kit cannot easily grasp. The smaller TALON and Dragon Runner can use the pincers mounted on the front of their bodies to move the refuse into the BOBCAT’s grasp for easier, more controlled disposal. Both companies’ robots are operated by nothing more high-tech than a typical video-game controller. The operators’ familiarity with the joystick-style steering, Quinn says, allowed them to quickly learn how to navigate the robots through the radioactive ruins.
“It’s a situation that’s far from over,” says Quinn. Radiation is still too high for humans, particularly inside the reactor building, as PackBot uncovered this weekend. But by removing debris and monitoring radiation over the next few months, the robots hopefully will help to make the site safe for an eventual human takeover of the cleanup process. In the meantime, both companies are proud that their technologies were a part of the speedy response. “This is what we came into the business for,” Trainer says.
This article first appeared on the Popular Mechanics
website in April 2011