'Like the iPhone did, robots will open a new market' - The Korea Herald

The archetypal iPhone, introduced successful 2007, wowed markets astir the satellite due to the fact that it had everything that radical wanted. The precise archetypal smartphone combined mundane features successful 1 azygous palm-sized device, opening a caller epoch for humanity to prosecute technology-driven lives.

The adjacent revolutionary exertion volition beryllium led by robots, according to the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA) President Shon Woong-hee, if they supply breakthrough services that cater to "human desires" conscionable similar the archetypal iPhone did 15 years ago.

“The cognition toward robots has evolved from thing absorbing to thing indispensable for business, arsenic they substitute repetitive and physically demanding tasks for workers. Such a cognition should make successful the aboriginal to marque robots thing radical want, for the maturation of the industry,” Shon said successful an interrogation with The Korea Herald.

Robots person truthful acold played supporting roles for humans successful manufacturing chips and car parts, South Korea’s 2 main export items. Companies beryllium heavy connected robots for outgo competitiveness, prime advancement, show absorption and gathering transportation deadlines, according to Shon.

Besides concern robots and collaborative robots astatine factories, much robots are being utilized successful the work industry. They are being utilized for nutrient and beverage services, logistics and cultivation purposes, among others. They are besides being actively developed among businesses successful different sectors specified arsenic semiconductors, artificial intelligence, drones, bundle and autonomous driving vehicles. Applying robots to a assortment of fields to execute much analyzable tasks volition unfastened up a caller marketplace for the robot industry, helium said.

“The robot assemblage itself does not instrumentality up a large portion of the country’s industry, but the magnitude of synergy it creates with different sectors is huge,” Shon said.

Shon is simply a robotics adept with implicit 30 years of acquisition arsenic an engineer. He became the caller president of the KIRIA past year. The KIRIA is simply a state-run institute established successful 2010. Working with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the institute has led assorted promotional events and activities for the maturation of the South Korean robot industry, and has taken portion successful nurturing related talent.

As the world’s first, South Korea established a instrumentality successful 2010 to beforehand the improvement of intelligent robots. Every 5 years since then, the authorities has released enactment plans to usage robots successful people’s mundane lives. Such plans removed restrictive hurdles and allowed companies to tally aviator projects specified arsenic Hyundai Motor Group’s level 4 autonomous driving shuttle autobus and Baemin’s door-to-door nutrient transportation robot successful definite districts.

The KIRIA tin supply a regulatory sandbox situation with flexibility astir definite regulations for impermanent periods to beforehand the robot industry, Shon said.

The exertion of robots volition besides alleviate enactment shortages successful definite industries specified arsenic agriculture, transforming the field's “3D” (dirty, unsafe and difficult) tasks to “ACE” (automatic, cleanable and easy) ones, helium added.

To popularize this perception, KIRIA volition instrumentality portion successful the country’s archetypal Electric and Autonomous Agriculture Expo acceptable to beryllium held connected Jeju Island from Tuesday to Thursday, to connection insights connected the latest cultivation instrumentality trends and technology.

The expo is simply a spinoff of the yearly International Electric Vehicle Expo taking spot connected the land each twelvemonth since 2013. The Korea Herald is the media spouse for this event.

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)