ILEA000012404: Chiba Univ. introduces mine-detecting robot

Hokuriku Electric Power's "Assist Arm" robot for power distribution work

Hokuriku Electric Power Company has completed the development of the "Assist Arm" (photo), a robot for power distribution work, and has begun deploying it. The robot will assist in the construction work, which used to be done by two people in a high-altitude work truck, enabling the work to be done by one person. This is the first time such a robot has been used in Japan. The company plans to adopt 10 more robots, including those of group companies, by the end of fiscal year 2019. The robots will be used for the most frequent part of the power distribution work, the wire separator work. In the past, high-voltage wires were cut and the cut wires were connected to each other with a temporary equipment called a wire separator by lifting a stick-shaped tool weighing about 10 kilograms. The robot will be able to cut wires and grab objects with an arm that can move in six axes with a single control grip, saving labor. Photo taken on November 20, 2019, credit: Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun / Kyodo News Images

Univ. to retain ex-reporter despite threat over "comfort women" issue

SAPPORO, Japan - Shinichi Tamura, president of Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo, Hokkaido, in northern Japan, holds a press conference in Sapporo on Dec. 17, 2014. Tamura said the university will renew the contract of a part-time lecturer, a former reporter for The Asahi Shimbun newspaper, for the school year starting in April despite threats to the school over the lecturer's involvement in controversial reporting on the issue of "comfort women."

Flying robot for disaster work

SENDAI, Japan - Keiji Nagatani, associate professor of Tohoku University, demonstrates a flying robot at the university in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, on Aug. 1, 2011. A research group of Tohoku University and University of Pennsylvania said the same day they have succeeded in an experiment to use walking and flying robots to jointly examine the interior of a building damaged by the March quake and disaster.

JAL group operating profit tumbles 48.3% on flight troubles, cost rise

TOKYO, Japan - Japan Airlines Corp. President Haruka Nishimatsu speaks at a press conference at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Nov. 8. He said the company's consolidated operating profit plunged 48.3 percent year on year in the April-September period to 8.16 billion yen due to soaring fuel costs and flight troubles that turned away many prospective customers. The nation's top air carrier, however, managed to secure a group net profit of 1.51 billion yen, a turnaround from a loss of 12.04 billion yen a year earlier, by unloading its shareholdings.

(1)Robots show off skills in Fukuoka shopping arcade

FUKUOKA, Japan - A humanoid robot moves from one shop to another for shopping on the street in the Fukuoka's Hakata district on Feb. 21. A group of university and corporate researchers tested various robots in a shopping arcade in Fukuoka in the first experiment of its kind in Japan. The city has been designated as a special zone for robot research and development.

Ministry unveils mine-clearing robots for Afghanistan

TOKYO, Japan - The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry unveils the six-legged robot ''Comet 2'' under development designed to detect and remove land mines in Afghanistan at an annex of the ministry in Tokyo on Jan. 18. Comet 2 can detect ordinary mines as well as plastic ones which cannot be spotted by a metal detector with a sonic wave radar.