Japan is looking to examine the current condition of one of the Fukushima Dai-chi nuclear plant's reactors with a robot that can change its shape.
Electronics giant Hitachi and its nuclear affiliate Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy created the 60-centimeter- long snake-like robot, which works with a remote control so humans won't have to go into the reactor chambers and be harmed by the high levels of radiation, according to CTV News.
The move comes almost four years after an earthquake and tsunami caused great damage to the plant, resulting in three reactors melting.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, intends to use the machine to repair the chambers enough to fill them with water before removing the melted radioactive debris. The debris removal is expected to take place in about a decade.
The robot showed off its capabilities at a demonstration on Thursday at one of Hitachi's factories, where it was able to get through a pipe with a diameter of 10 cm, The Asashi Shimbun reported. It then changed its shape on the other side of the pipe so it could crawl around and take photos of its surroundings.
The goal for the tubular-shaped machine is to get into the containment vessels by passing through holes in the wall and then collect information such as radiation levels and temperature. The bot's camera will only be able to work for 10 hours due to the damage high levels of radiation could cause to electronic devices.
The plan is to deploy the robot this spring at the Unit 1 reactor, which computer simulations have indicated has melted fuel rods at the bottom of the containment chamber, CTV News reported. The robot will not be used again after the trip because of its extremely high radioactivity and will be stored in a shielded box when its creators are done using it. A different robot will be designed to collect information from different reactors.
"Depending on how much data we can collect from this area, I believe (the probe) will give us a clearer vision for future decommissioning," said Yoshimoto Takahashi, an engineer at Hitachi-GE.
The shape-shifting robot will not be the only machine tasked with handling the Fukushima dilemma, as scientists are working on an amphibious robot that will be deployed next year to examine debris on the bottom of submerged underwater.
