Hitachi’s shape changing robot (at least one of them, they have more) is abandoned and dead inside the containment of unit 1. The robot did manage to transmit quite a bit of information and was still working two days later when they cut the cord. This is a small bit of good news as it proved that the robot model could withstand fairly high radiation for a long period of time without the camera or electronics failing.

The newest report considered that the robot may have gotten wedged as it tried to navigate between an HVH box and a pump. There was a piece of debris to one side so they set the robot to the far side between the two structures and that appears to be where it remains stuck. This point is one of the narrowest sections of the planned route. A photo of the mock up of this location shows a narrow passage and what looks like nearby pipes. So the failure may have been one of circumstance rather than equipment failure. This robot model does apparently have a problem freeing itself, one of the down sides of the small size.



http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=14683