US$ 316M investment in Korean robotics

The South Korean government plans to expand the country’s robot industry by more than 10 times over the next decade, the Korean Times reports. Under the plan, the government will invest 350 billion won (US$316 million) over the next 10 years to develop various technologies and new industrial, as well as commercial robots, such as disaster relief robots and home assistance robots, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.
The move will help boost the size of the country’s robot industry from its current value of 2 trillion won to 25 trillion won in 2022, it said. The government also seeks to set up a separate plan for the development of what it called “intelligent robots” before the end of next year.


At the Robot World 2012 in Seoul researchers from the Korean Institute of Science and Technology KIST demonstrated their lastest version of service robot, CIROS. intended to become the homemade of the future. Besides CIROS, the researchers are also developing a bipedal humanoid robot named KIBO, and educational robot ENGKEY designed to teach students English lessons.


Technology giant Samsung has focused on consumer robotics technology in recent years and co-developed humanoid robots with (KIST) since 2004. At IROS 2012 researchers from Samsung Advanced Technology Institute (SAIT) presented a new bipedal humanoid named Roboray, with torque-controlled bipeds, which improves balance, push recovery, and ability to walk on uneven terrain. Check the demo video below.

Wolfgang Heller

Wolfgang Heller