Anti-Tsunami Laboratory (ATL) "provides automatic functioned and economical tsunami hazard reduction system", "supports the people who suffered big tsunami hazards" and "minimizes future tsunami hazards".

Message of Representative (Photo : in front of Kuroshio-cho Tenmangu, March 2016)

The tsunami hazards at the East Japan Large Earthquake on 11th March, 2011 was so catastrophic specially in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate Prefecture. The most of Japanese who watched the catastrophic tsunami and accompanied hazards on TV, were so surprised at the huge power of nature. Simultaneously we felt that human should do something against such hazards but regret that they could do nothing at the timing. On the other hand, we do not want to give up our life even against unreasonable natural hazards, such as huge tsunami, and want to have technical measures to reduce the tsunami hazards as much as possible.
After the tsunami, I started to consider to develop tsunami reduction system which reduce such tsunami hazards even by small amounts. Then I fixed the idea and invented the system of Anti-Tsunami Door (ATD) around the end of 2011. Because I was not sure that the other person already developed these kind of idea, and the practical application was not proceeded because of technical difficulties, I applied it as Japanese Patent to confirm the situation. ATD was accepted as Japanese patent in 2013 finally. Simultaneously I implemented several experiments at Chigasaki Sea Coast and Sagami River in order to confirm the features of the system and improve their performance. The experiments in nature are always unstable and “try and error”, so I felt that it is quite hard to show the performance properly.
Under such situation, Assis. Prof. Mitsuhiro Masuda, of Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (Faculty of Marine Technology) has understood on the ATD system and implemented several experiments using facilities in Nippon University. As the results, he confirmed the basic function (automatic action) of ATD.
Although it is quite difficult for the general citizen and the specialist of tsunami hazard reduction to understand and accept the ATD system and technology, we have proceeded the technical development little by little. And in 2014, I could start some detailed experiments as collaborative research with Prof. Tetsuya Hiraishi (Disaster Prevention Research Institute of Kyoto University) using technical facilities in Kyoto University. Although it is still unknown how much this ATD can contribute as tsunami hazard reduction, I am expecting that the ATD system will be developed properly and it will support the suffered people at the previous tsunami and reduce hazards at any tsunami in future.