Recently, robots that were developed as a means to enrich people’s everyday lives have had so much going on. They are morphing from simple industrial robots into intelligent service providers through robot technology convergence in varied areas such as education, medical care, silver, national defense, construction and maritime fields.
Thus, Korea IT Times interviewed Dr. Lee Sang-moo, Robot Program Director of the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology to learn about where the Korean robot industry stands right now and where it is headed. He is currently in charge of the Robot R&D Project at the Industrial Fundamental Technology Division and takes care of all functions from discovering new tasks and interim management to the promotion of successful project results.
The IFR (International Federation of Robotics) said that the global robot market grew 13.8% year-on-year to $9.25 billion in 2008 with professional service robots leading the growth. In addition, the IFR predicted that robot application areas such as medical care and national defense would continue to grow and a full-blown service robot market would be created in 5 to 10 years as the robot industry continuously converges with other industries like the auto industry.
Dr. Lee mentioned, “The global robot market has been on an upward trajectory. According to the KAR’s (Korea Association of Robot Industry) survey, the global robot market last year was worth 1 trillion KRW in terms of production volume and is likely to exceed 1.2 trillion KRW this year. Still, industrial robots take up a large chunk of the market. Considering that, service robots have been growing by 20% to 30% annually; therefore service robots are expected to take the lead in the end.”
The key matter of robot R&D
As of now, the Korean industrial robot market ranks fourth in the world in terms of the number of robots in use. At the moment, no reliable statistics exist on service robots. Yet R&D on service robots and policy support for making robots widely available are briskly underway in Korea. On the technological forefront, Korea is trailing behind Japan, the US and the EU, which means the Korean robot industry has made progress on a continual basis.
Last year, the ‘Roadmap for Developing the Korean Robot Industry’ was drawn up, selecting the most promising “five star brands” and “four Key technology” categories. The five star brands include an eco-friendly high-tech robot production system, a creative edutainment robot, high value-added medical service robot, a robot system for sustainable social stability and a life care robot. Additionally, robot technologies were divided into four key technologies and platform technologies, the four key technologies are locomotion, manipulation, HRI (human robot interaction) and a new-concept actuator.
Service robots are the future of the robot industry
The IFR announced that the professional service robot industry grew a whopping 45.4% year-on-year until 2008. As of now, cleaning robots reign supreme in the personal service market. In a situation where the Roomba, which was first introduced in the US market, has faced no serious competition so far, Korea’s large companies such as Samsung and LG have jumped on the bandwagon and are vigorously developing more innovative cleaning robots. Furthermore, Korean standards on cleaning robots, certification procedures and requirements have already been made. In a nutshell, the future of the cleaning robot market looks very rosy.
Moreover, with no international standards put in place, Korea can spearhead the efforts for international standardization based on the Korean benchmark. “In the short term, cleaning robots have the brightest future among service robots. Since 2004, Korea’s cleaning robot market has advanced by 30% annually. Industry insiders expect that over 150,000 units would be sold this year with the Korean cleaning robot market climbing up to approximately 50 billion KRW,” said Lee Sang-moo.
The second most promising market is for surveillance robots. Case-in-point is the surveillance robot system which was developed under the New Growth Engine Smart Project and has been in operation at the crude oil storage facility in Seosan, located on the west coast of South Korea, since July. Indeed, the surveillance robot system at the crude oil storage facility in Seosan clearly shows the limitless growth potential of the surveillance robot market. In July, the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) and Samsung Techwin completed the construction of a surveillance robot test bed and the surveillance robot test bed has already kicked in. By taking advantage of the technologies developed under the Smart Project, Samsung Techwin signed a $50 million contract with Algiers, the capital of Algeria, to run a traffic surveillance robot system on a pilot basis. The Seosan surveillance robot system has been well received by the world, so the oil storage base is inundated with inquiries concerning field trips to the base in Seosan.
What’s more, surgical robots are also worthy of attention. It is already hard to find a Korean hospital that operates without surgical robots. This is because surgical robots enable safer and more delicate surgeries. However, due to issues like patents and FDA approval, Korean hospitals are solely dependent on imported surgical robots from the US (the market leader). The most widely used surgical robot is the da Vinci Surgical System. The global market for the da Vinci Surgical System was worth 1 trillion KRW in 2007. The da Vinci Surgical System designed for laparoscopic surgery is widely used in Korea.
Take Severance Hospital of the Yonsei University Health System for instance, in July the number of da Vinci-assisted surgeries topped 4,000. Korea is indeed serving as a test bed for surgical robots. However, we can’t solely count on imported robots forever. Korean companies are actively developing robots for laparoscopic surgery.
Robots themselves are a convergence industry and an area of study
There is no denying that today’s keyword is convergence. In that sense, traditional robot technologies are fusing with mechanical engineering, control technology, soft and electric, electronic and medical technologies. Therefore, the robot industry itself is a convergence industry.Besides, with the convergence among various industries like communications, parts and disciplines, the robot sector is anticipated to grow to an unlimited extent.
Dr. Lee Sang-moo stated, “Though there is so much expectation, the robot industry’s advancement will take a lot of time to be taken to new heights. As a matter of fact, the five-year period of the project is not sufficient, but thankfully the products developed under the project are being steadily commercialized. I am very pleased to see those tangible achievements in such a short time. If the government’s backing and efforts to nurture robot experts continue, the Korean robot industry will see no limits to its growth.”
