Pollen-Robo's luminous "eyes" cycle through five colors depending on the area's pollen count. The balloon-like robots were developed in 2006 to warn Japanese residents of impending hayfever attacks--16 percent of the nation's population suffers from pollen allergies.
Each Pollen-Robo, developed by forecaster Weathernews Inc., is 11.8 inches (30 centimeters) wide and weighs about two pounds (one kilogram).
The pollution-monitoring bots hang outside homes, absorbing the same volume of air that a person breathes. They relay pollen, temperature, air pressure, and humidity data to Weathernews for its online pollen alert map.
Like a real-life version of the title robot from the Oscar-nominated film WALL-E, Pollen-Robos are among the droids tackling the world's environmental jobs. Such machines are reducing greenhouse gas emissions, patrolling the Amazon, and mopping up radioactive waste.
Here's a look at some of the "green" machines in development today and how they can help save the planet.
Hauling yourself up a 100-foot-tall (30-meter-tall) rotor blade is no easy task. But with more wind turbines being built to offer sustainable energy, there's a growing need for robust maintenance workers. That's where RIWEA robots come in.
In development at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation, RIWEA can automatically climb turbines and check every inch of the blades for surface defects using a thermal camera.
RIWEA also uses ultrasound to find deeper flaws that no human maintenance worker would be able to see.
According to the World Wind Energy Association, total wind-power generation, at 260 terawatt hours, now equals about 1.5 percent of global electricity use.
Chico Mendes campaigned to save the Amazon rain forest from logging and ranchers before he was shot dead in 1988. Today the activist's legacy lives on in the form of amphibious robots that patrol the Amazon River Basin.
Brazilian energy giant Petrobras developed the 5-foot-long (1.5-meter-long) "Chicos" in 2007 in conjunction with socio-environmental research program Piatam. The project aims to help Petrobras meet its environmental requirements while constructing a 261-mile (420-kilometer) gas pipeline along the Solimões River.
The remote-operated, solar-powered machines roam the basin collecting data on water chemistry as well as imagery and sound recordings that reveal any industrial impacts.
"The challenge was to create a tool that could reach the key spots in the habitat without causing greater harm," said project coordinator and bot creator Rey Robinson Salvi dos Reis, above. "We needed a device that could travel this terrain and show us what is in its path."
Dodging Death
Traffic collisions claim the lives of tens of thousands of people annually in the U.S.--and generate tons of waste from wrecked vehicles and clouds of emissions from traffic backups. Nissan Motors wants to halve the accidents its vehicles are involved in by 2015, and car company execs think robotic technology inspired by nature can help do the job.
Demonstrated using small robots last year, the Biomimetic Car Robot Drive was designed based on the compound eyes and 300-degree vision of bumblebees. The sensors use laser range-finders to detect obstacles up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) away.
Once installed in a vehicle, "the split second [the sensors] detect an obstacle, the car robot will mimic the movements of a bee and instantly change direction by turning [the car's] wheels at right angles or greater to avoid a collision," said Nissan's Toshiyuki Ando.
"The biggest difference to any current system is that the avoidance maneuver is totally instinctive."
Solar Mower
Lawn mower engines have not been subject to the same emission-control regulations as cars, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yard work has therefore played a significant role in the formation of ground-level ozone due to mower emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides.
Sweden-based firm Husqvarna's solution is the Automower Solar Hybrid, the world's first automatic lawn mower partly powered by sunlight.
On sale this year, the unit can cover up to 22,600 square feet (2,100 square meters), and can even tackle slopes.
The hybrid helper operates for up to an hour on a 45-minute battery charge--longer if it's sunny--before returning to its charging station. The only things it emits are grass cuttings.
Radioactive Possum
Like lonely WALL-E, left behind to clean up a garbage-coated Earth, the Possum is sent to scrub aging radioactive waste storage tanks where humans dare not linger.
The Possum, developed by GE Inspection Technologies, is so named because it's lowered tail-down through 12-inch (30-centimeter) access ports into the underground tanks.
The bot is remote-controlled and equipped with a camera so operators can take pictures of the tank interior and locate waste for cleanup.
Once the device is maneuvered into position, it wields its scoop to transfer the waste into a container. Inspectors can then determine what sort of material it is and how much of it remains in the tank.
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