Japan, well-known for digital devices such as Hello-Kitty pocket pals and creepy fem bots is also the place where robotic attendants are found; who would assist Japan’s aging population to perform everyday tasks especially, for those who live without family and children around them.
Thus, in Japan a whole industry is focused on building skilled remote controlled and also semi-autonomous robots, which could perform a number of tasks.
Normally robots are used mainly in car factories where riveters, benders and heavy duty welders were required and they were not multi-tasking. In the past, victims of helicopter crashes were helped by remote controlled subs, or used for investigating objects, which were suspected by the soldiers to be explosive devices and so on. They performed these tasks by going near the objects and prodding them, leading to a number of mechanical causalities.
According to Robin Murphy, who is the Director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), the robots made by the Japanese are now being utilized for search and rescue operations, following the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. Robots that have been created to locate victims from rubble might not be very effective and may also be much slower when compared to the humans or even dogs, which are on the same job. But if the robots are employed in places where buildings have collapsed with layers of debris around, then probably the robots could work effectively. However, in Japan the Tsunami had washed away most of the debris.
Source: http://crasar.org/