West Japan Railway (JR West), one of Japan's leading railway companies, has unveiled an anthropomorphic robot designed to execute a wide range of maintenance tasks along its railway lines. This impressive machine, standing approximately six meters tall with an arm span of 12.2 meters, promises to revolutionize the way infrastructure maintenance operations are conducted.
The robot, mounted on a bimodal truck capable of traveling on both roads and rails, is equipped with two arms, each fitted with a two-fingered hand capable of lifting objects up to 40 kilograms. With its ability to operate at heights of up to twelve meters from the ground, the robot can handle tasks such as trimming tree branches along the tracks and painting metal structures supporting electrical power cables.
The robot is controlled from within the truck, where an operator uses a virtual reality headset connected to the robot's cameras to synchronize the machine's movements with their own. This technology allows the operator to sense the weight of the lifted objects through control levers, ensuring precise and intuitive handling.
Kazuaki Hasegawa, president of JR West, stated that the introduction of this robot will significantly enhance worker safety by reducing the need for personnel to climb on overhead lines and decreasing the workforce required for most maintenance activities by about thirty percent. Additionally, the robot's use will help eliminate workplace accidents caused by electric shocks or falls.
The development of this robot stems from the collaboration between JR West, Jinki Ittai, a robotic technology developer, and Nippon Signal, an IT and electronics company for infrastructure. In the future, JR West plans to expand the use of similar machines to cover all types of infrastructure maintenance operations, providing a case study on how to address the labor shortage in Japan.
