Japan has long been a leader in developing industrial and therapeutic robots, with Sony's AIBO dog first sold in 1999 and the therapeutic robot seal Paro in use in hospitals and nursing homes in Japan and abroad.

More recently a robotic "power-assist" suit is being developed for Japan's elderly farmers, to aid in the physical labor involved in tending and harvesting their crops.

Why then did Tokyo Electric Power Co. turn to American Talon and PackBot robots to first go into high radiation areas of its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant?