The Japanese are leading the charge to get robots working on ships at sea.
Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) with a number of other local companies has just conducted a trial of a remote-controlled robot that scrapes wood chips in the hold of a wood-chip carrier. NYK said in a release the new scraping robot aims to address safety and the workforce shortage in wood-chip scraping operations.
The companies operated the robot remotely in the ship’s hold for about two hours during cargo unloading.
Splash reported earlier this month on another Japanese shipowner, Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), unveiling a maintenance robot. The wall climbing robot can help with ship inspections and maintenance work.