Tokyo, 24 July, /AJMEDIA/
As the largest rail operator in west Japan, keeping its tracks in good working order is of critical importance to West Japan Railway Company. So this month JR West, as the company is also known, has added a new maintenance worker…a new robot maintenance worker.
Developed jointly by JR West, Nippon Signal, and Shiga Prefecture-based robotics company Jinki Ittai (which also goes by the name Man-Machine Synergy Effectors Inc), the unit is called the Multifunctional Railway Heavy Equipment, and adapts an earlier rail-only design into a more flexible truck-based system.
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The robot’s torso is attached to a crane arm-like appendage which can be extended to do work at heights up to 12 meters off the ground, and the arms can hold and manipulate equipment weighing up to 40 kilograms.
JR West says it hopes to achieve three goals from the introduction of the robots: higher productivity, reduced worker risk, and a more flexible workforce, as controlling the robot takes far less physical strength than doing the work by hand, allowing older or less athletic employees to carry out maintenance projects.
▼ The robot’s control booth
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The specialized hand controls allow the operator to regulate how much force goes into the robot’s grasp, and the head-mounted camera array supports the use of “VR goggles” that let the user see things from the robot’s perspective, as shown in the demonstration video below.
