On a routine day at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear-power plant, a snakelike robot is cleaning the floor of the reactor buildings while another maps radiation density with a 3-D camera. In the three years since several of the plant’s reactors suffered meltdowns caused by Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, it has become clear that melted fuel rods and debris inside the reactor buildings have to be cleaned up before the risks of radioactive discharge from the site can be contained. That’s where the robots come in. Robots are crucial in the cleanup, but that doesn’t mean they are […]