Last Thursday night, Robin R. Murphy, director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue at Texas A&M University, held a goodbye party in College Station for Japanese robotics researchers who had come to the center for workshops on using their creations in an emergency.
The next day, the workshops became reality. The massive earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan that Friday meant the scientists, already booked on a plane, were rushing home to help.
Satoshi Tadokoro of Tohoku University, based in Sendai, one of the cities hardest hit by the disaster, raced back with his team to offer the use of a robot developed at Tohoku. The snakelike robot can enter tight spaces and use a camera to survey them, something particularly helpful in collapsed buildings, says Ms. Murphy.
To read the full, original article click on this link: In Japan, Rescue Robots Are Poised to Go From Lab to Quake Scene - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Author: Ben Wieder
