Was in den 1980ern vielleicht nicht mehr als Sci-Fi war, ist in Japan jetzt Realität. Dort setzt ma zur Wartung von Bahnstrecken einen riesigen humanoiden Roboter ein, der von außen von einem Menschen ferngesteuert wird.
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 – which can drive on rails – will be put to use for maintenance work on the company’s network.
Its operator sits in a cockpit on the truck, “seeing” through the robot’s eyes via cameras and operating its powerful limbs and hands remotely.
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.
