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It won¡¯t be too much longer before Star Wars-like robots, that can think and move by themselves, will be part of our everyday lives. Following robotic vacuums, which now sell over 3,000 units a month, robots will be developed and launched commercially for education, medical and military purposes in 2006. Experts are predicting explosive growth in the Korean robotics market, from a meager W350 billion (about US$350 million) in 2004 to W10 trillion by 2010 and to W100 trillion by 2020. This is why, along with the automakers and mobile phone producers, the robot industry is cited as one of the industries expected be a driving-force behind the nation¡¯s economic growth in the future.
¡ßLiving with robots
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T-Rot, a ¡°thinking¡± robot developed by the Science and Technology Ministry¡¯s intelligent robot taskforce and introduced during last year¡¯s APEC summit. T-Rot¡¯s fingers have a human-like sense of touch, so they can hold objects by adjusting their strength depending on the material.
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Yujin Robotics was fast at work on the development of the educational robot ¡°Jupiter¡± at its institute in Gasan-dong in Seoul. ¡°Jupiter¡± is programmed to read children English children¡¯s books. If children get bored with listening to stories, the robot can even resort to singing and dancing to draw the attention of youngsters.
¡°Jupiter updates itself by downloading 200 children¡¯s stories and songs from a computer via the wireless Internet,¡± said Yujin Robotics president Shin Kyung-chul. ¡°Jupiter¡± will hit stores at the price of W1 million (US$1,000) in the second half of the year.
Dasa Tech completed the development of security guard robots in November 2005 in cooperation with security service company Samsung S1. Security guard robots will be marketed later this year. Equipped with surveillance cameras in their eyes, the robots monitor the inside and outside of a house and take pictures of suspicious people and intruders. The pictures are transmitted to the headquarters of S1. Dasa Tech researcher Choi Chang-hyuk said that security guard robots can find intruders early, enabling security firm staff to get to the scene in time.
Firefighting robots developed by Dongil Fatec will be placed in public areas, like subway stations and museums. These robots, which are connected to the water supply, can penetrate deep into the flames and extinguish fires at their core.
The use of robots for military purposes is also fast becoming a reality. A mine locater robot ¡°ROBHAZ¡±, developed by Yujin robotics, completed trial tests with the Zaytun Unit in Iraq last March. ROBHAZ sounds the alarm when it detects explosives, like mines, poisonous gas and radioactive materials. Military experts point to a future where robots will replace human soldiers on the battlefields.
¡ßRobot industry expected to outdo automobile industry by 2020
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Korea¡¯s humanoid robot Hubo
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These days robots are mainly used in industrial capacities such as automobile and semiconductor plants. However, the robot market is seeing exponential growth, as intelligent robots have been developed thanks to the combination of cutting-edge technologies, like information technology, and artificial intelligence.
The sales of robotic vacuums soared from 6,000 units in 2004 to 40,000 in 2005. The industry expects the sales of cleaning robots will also skyrocket to 100,000 units this year and to 200,000 in 2007. Experts forecast that the demand for intelligent robots will surge due to the lack of labor resulting from an aging population and a fall in the birth rate. The volume of the domestic robot market is expected to grow from the estimated W420 billion in 2005 to W100 trillion by 2020.
Commerce, Industry and Energy Ministry official Yoo Chung-yeol, proclaimed that there will be one robot per family by 2020 and the volume of the robot market by that time will exceed that of the car industry. If it is nurtured early, the robot industry could be a source of great economic growth for the country, just as the semiconductor, cell phone and automobile industries have been, Yoo added.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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