He looks like a malevolent robot from 1980s sci-fi, but West Japan Railway’s new humanoid employee wasn’t designed with anything more sinister in mind than some painting and gardening.
From this month, the truck-mounted machine – which can run on rails – will be used for maintenance work on the company’s network. The operator sits in the cab of the truck, “sees” through the robot’s eyes using cameras and remotely controls its strong limbs and hands.
With a vertical reach of 12 meters, the machine can use various accessories on its arms to carry objects weighing up to 40 kilograms, hold a brush or use a chainsaw.
According to the company, the robot’s main task for now will focus on trimming tree branches along the tracks and painting the metal frames that hold the cables above the trains.
The technology will help alleviate labor shortages in aging Japan and reduce accidents such as falls from high places or electric shocks.
“We hope to use machines for all types of maintenance operations on our infrastructure in the future,” which should serve as an example of a solution to the labor shortage, company president Kazuaki Hasegawa said at a recent press conference.
(AFP, Japan Times)
