Intelligent network based robots on the market in 2005

A new type of network-based robot will debut in Korea in late 2005, greeting customers in around 200 post offices and interacting in real time service applications for commercial and home uses. One male based robot security guard will guard post offices around the clock and is equipped with a net it can shoot to capture intruders. Another female styled robot will tend to customers and make those long queues more bearable by screening fun video clips on embedded monitors.

The network-based robots are part of a project called the Ubiquitous Robot Companion (URC) being promoted by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), who are taking advantage of the country's highest per capita use of high-speed Internet connection and wireless broadband services to deliver flexible robot programming through wireless networks and pre-empt the emerging robotics market.

"If the pair of URC robots pass the feasibility test, they can be applied to banks or other government agencies by handily changing their software," said Oh Sang-rok, the MIC project manager who is in charge of the URC scheme.

Three other network-based robots will also go on trial in a pilot program in 100 Korean homes.

"All the five dummies are network-enabled models empowered by the broadband convergence network. They will revolutionize our daily lives, eventually accompanying us at any time and any place," Oh predicted.

Networked Robots – a new paradigm

Automotive and electronics industry leaders like Toyota , Honda and Fujitsu have taken an aggressive lead in the burgeoning domestic and commercial robotics markets, but genuinely intelligent robots that can understand and interact in real time with humans have until now been limited to expensive prototypes.

Countries like Japan, with the most advanced robotics industry, have a development head start that Korea could not hope to match outright. "If we had jumped onto the bandwagon of developing pricey robots with the aim of competing with advanced nations, we would have faced a debacle. Our strategy is to make reasonable feature-embedded robots with price tags that don't scare off normal buyers and the answer was to go online," Oh explained.

Korean scientists took full advantage of the country's state-of-the-art Internet infrastructure to develop a network-based approach to functionality. Intelligent robots need three basic functions: sensing, processing and action. Oh's team took the lateral step of outsourcing most sensing and processing abilities by connecting to Korea's robust broadband network.

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