This entry was posted on Sunday, April 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Robotics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Pollen robots across the Japan
Nice spring weather isn’t enjoyable for everyone. Many people suffer from allergies they get when the pollen starts to spread around.
Japan, and especially Tokyo, is a place where allergies are a big problem because of the omnipresence of cedar trees. These trees can be found everywhere in the country because they cover more than ten percent of Japan. On nice days, pollen can even be seen with the naked eye like a cloud hovering above the forest.
Weather News is a weather information company from Japan, and they produced 500 globe-shaped robots that change color depending on the amount of allergy-causing pollen in the air. The robots can detect 5 different levels of pollen amount and change the color according to severity.
Pollen Robots weigh 1 kg and has a diameter of 30cm, complete with a pair of eyes that glow according to the level of Japanese cedar and cypress pollen in the air (white, blue, green, red and purple).
They have been installed all across Japan. Apart from telling the owner and people around about the pollen threat levels, the robots also collect other weather data like temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure. That information is transmitted to Weather News, which then combines and releases it to the public via the Internet and delivering it personally via cell phone service.
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