Disaster search-and-rescue in robot-crazy Japan
Posted 05.14.2009 at 9:13 am
2 Comments
Helping Hand RoboCue is designed to pluck victims of bomb blasts from spots human rescuers cannot reach
Kiyoshi Ota (Take a closer look!)
No, it’s not a robot uprising. This is the Tokyo Fire Department's Rescue Robot, also known as RoboCue, taking a mock patient to safety as part of a training exercise for dirty-bomb containment and casualty rescue, held late last year in Tokyo.
Related Articles
 | Send in the Rescue Robots |
 | Robo Hop |
| Robots Impress at Japanese Convention |
Tags
Science, japan, june 2009, megapixels, rescue robots, rescuersDesigned by the fire department itself, the search-and-recover ’bot is tethered by a 328-foot cable and equipped with infrared cameras, a megaphone, and ultrasonic sensors that find victims in places where human rescuers cannot go, such as burning houses. It also has an onboard oxygen canister for those who might need it. Two feeler appendages gently load the victim, whether injured by the blast or trampled in the ensuing chaos, onto a sleigh bed before wheeling him safely out. The only drawback: Hauling multiple victims is not possible with this particular model.
Want to learn more about breakthroughs in electronics, medicine, nanotech, and more?
Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!
Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!
2 Comments
To comment, please Login.
138 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.
Innovation Challenges
Popular Science+ For iPad
Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page
Download Our App
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Follow Us On Twitter
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
.jpg)
February 2012: The Future of Fun
Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?
Popular on Popsci
Most Viewed
Science
- Gallery: The Best Way to Unbuild a Dam
- 3-D Laser Maps Show How Major Quakes Rend the Earth
- Doctors Grow Parkinsonian Human Brain Cells In Vitro, Shedding Light on the Genetics of the Disease
- An Oral History of Extreme Sports
- 200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass Is the World's Oldest Living Organism
- Video Gallery: The Most Amazing Movies of the Minuscule World
- MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible
- Antarctica's Frozen Lake Vostok, Isolated for 20 Million Years, Breached By Russian Drills
- To Compare Human and Monkey Brains, Humans and Monkeys Watch a Clint Eastwood Film
- The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012
Most Emailed
Science
- 3-D Laser Maps Show How Major Quakes Rend the Earth
- Doctors Grow Parkinsonian Human Brain Cells In Vitro, Shedding Light on the Genetics of the Disease
- An Oral History of Extreme Sports
- 200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass Is the World's Oldest Living Organism
- Video Gallery: The Most Amazing Movies of the Minuscule World
- MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible
- Antarctica's Frozen Lake Vostok, Isolated for 20 Million Years, Breached By Russian Drills
- To Compare Human and Monkey Brains, Humans and Monkeys Watch a Clint Eastwood Film
- The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012
- Archive Gallery: PopSci Hunts For Mythical Beasts
Most Commented
Science
- The Moon Should Be the 51st State, and Other Space Dreams From Newt Gingrich
- Russian Scientists Drilling into "Alien" Antarctic Lake Vostok Fall Silent
- 10-Year-Old Accidentally Creates New Molecule in Science Class
- Should Scientists Be Held Legally Responsible for Their Results?
- Hilarious "Theory of Everything" Paper Provokes Kerfuffle
- FYI: Do Animals Dream?
- New Climate Change Culprit: Chilean Man Stealing Glaciers to Put In Cocktails
- How D-Dalus Flies Like Nothing Else
- The Best Way to Unbuild a Dam
- How Men Can Decode Women's Menstrual Cycles
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2009 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
The idea is clever but nothing new. We don't see the whole vehicle in the picture but i have a hunch it'd be bulky. Also on those shopping cart-wheels it won't be able to clear the smallest obstacle, much less entering a burning house or driving over debris and rubble.
I guess this partially functioning prototypes are just steps along the way to something that really works.
I think the ability of dashing in and out of a burning structure carrying a person on his/her shoulders is still a prerogative of human firefighters and rescue personnel.
However, robots are here to stay and i "love" them; I'd just like to see them (the robots) doing robot-like stuff.
Think of a sturdy robot capable of entering a building, clearing flights of stairs, knocking down doors while unleashing the power of its hardware to extinguish the fire so that human firefighters can safely follow and rescue people.
That would probably make risk a little safer.
One thing that makes me nervous about using this... If your leg is broke because a beam fell on it leaving you pinned will this robot jerk the Fun out of the victim. Hmmmm...