{"id":90585,"date":"2024-07-20T16:16:20","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T06:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=90585"},"modified":"2024-07-20T16:16:23","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T06:16:23","slug":"japan-introduces-enormous-humanoid-robot-to-maintain-train-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=90585","title":{"rendered":"Japan introduces enormous humanoid robot to maintain train lines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It resembles an enormous, malevolent robot from 1980s sci-fi but West\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/japan\">Japan<\/a> Railway\u2019s new humanoid employee was designed with nothing more sinister than a spot of painting and gardening in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Starting this month, the large machine with enormous arms, a crude, disproportionately small Wall-E-like head and coke-bottle eyes mounted on a truck \u2013 which can drive on rails \u2013 will be put to use for maintenance work on the company\u2019s network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Its operator sits in a cockpit on the truck, \u201cseeing\u201d through the robot\u2019s eyes via cameras and operating its powerful limbs and hands remotely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With a vertical reach of 12 metres (40ft), the machine can use various attachments for its arms to carry objects as heavy as 40kg (88lb), hold a brush to paint or use a chainsaw.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\" id=\"b6465c76-2196-4b8c-9f90-f808c124c8bd\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-82.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-90586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-82.jpeg 445w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-82-300x180.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 445px) 100vw, 445px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Japan\u2019s giant robot fixes railway power lines.&nbsp;Photograph: Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>For now, the robot\u2019s primary task will focus on trimming tree branches along rails and painting metal frames that hold cables above trains, the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The technology will help fill worker shortages<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/01\/life-at-the-heart-of-japans-solitary-deaths-epidemic-i-would-be-lying-if-i-said-i-wasnt-worried\">&nbsp;in ageing Japan<\/a>&nbsp;as well as reduce accidents such as workers falling from high places or suffering electric shocks, the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn the future, we hope to use machines for all kinds of maintenance operations of our infrastructure,\u201d and this should provide a case study for how to deal with the labour shortage, company president Kazuaki Hasegawa told a recent press conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 12-metre high machine has coke bottle eyes and a crude Wall-E-like head, as well as large arms that can be fitted with blades or paint brushes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":90588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8167,47,6070],"tags":[11704,318,11703],"class_list":["post-90585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japan-rail-news","category-rail-news","category-railway-track-structures","tag-giant-railway-robot","tag-japan","tag-west-japan-railways"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90589,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90585\/revisions\/90589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}