T-52 Enryu

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The T-52 Enryu (Japanese: T-52援竜 - literally rescue dragon), or HyperRescueRobot, is a five-ton, 10-foot-tall (apx 3 m), hydraulically-operated robot, built to cut a path through debris for rescue workers, in the wake of an earthquake or other catastrophe. The Enryu was designed by the Japanese company Tmsuk, and a prototype was unveiled in March, 2004 in Japan.

The Japanese robotics company Tmsuk has developed a 350 cm tall super robot which is incredibly strong and will be used to rush into burning buildings, lift extremely heavy objects and rescue humans. The super robot is codenamed the T-52 Enryu and certainly looks the part of a super hero, appearing part Transformer, part bulldozer and part King Kong at its fighting weight of 5 tons. The T-52 can lift a ton of weight with its arms alone, and the arms have the full range of movement available to the human arm.

Though only a prototype at this point, it is hoped to have the initial production models in operation by the end of 2004 and the company sees a future for robots which can safely go where humans cannot.

TMSUK developed the robot in cooperation with Kyoto University, the Kitakyushu Fire Department and Japan's National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster in Tokyo. The 3.5 metre-tall robot can either be driven from a cockpit positioned at the front of the robot or it can be controlled remotely as like its cousin the Banyru, it contains multiple CCD cameras which transmit to the remote driver - in this case, it has seven 6.8-megapixel CCD cams mounted on its head, torso and arms.