The Fukushima nuclear disaster, while certainly not short on tragedy, is also not short of robots, with a host of the automated helpers having been deployed there already. Now mighty Enriyu is set to join them, massive arms and all.
Weighing in at a massive five tons, Enriyu (“Rescue Dragon”) was originally created in response to the 1995 Kobe earthquake as a search and rescue bot, although it was not put into action until 2007.
Those two limbs can lift more than 90kg and are controlled directly via the man-sized cab, seen at right in the image of Enriyu above just before it smashes two human test subjects with a log, or by a portable suitcase-sized, seven camera feed-quipped control panel. [Kyodo News via CNET]