Korea develops AI-operated humanoid
Oh Jun-ho, head of the Humanoid Robot Research Center at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), third from left, with humanoid robot HUBO and executives from the institute and government organizations during the opening of the center in Daejeon, Thursday. / Courtesy of KAIST
By Yoon Sung-won
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is accelerating the development of advanced mechanical engineering technologies and autonomous systems for intelligent humanoids under financial support from the government, the institute said Friday.
Toward that end, the nation’s leading science and technology research institute opened the “Humanoid Robot Research Center,” Thursday.
The institute has already run a robot laboratory to develop Korea’s first humanoid named “HUBO” for more than a decade. But the support by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has upgrade the facility as an official state-backed research center to domestically develop robot engineering technologies and intelligent systems for humanoids while fostering new experts in this sector.
For the next five years, the research center will receive 15 billion won subsidy from the ministry.
Oh Jun-ho, a mechanical engineering professor at the KAIST who created “HUBO” will lead the research project in the center. Oh said the center’s top priority is to localize robot design and engineering technologies.
“We are working to built robots like U.S. robotics company Boston Dynamic’s humanoid robot ‘Atlas,’” Oh said in a telephone interview, Friday. “Such advanced robots also run on oil pressure and electricity. But we have faced limits in upgrading the robot’s performances because we have had no other option but to use existing components. So our top priority is to secure original technologies.”
Oh said his second mission is to develop advanced humanoids that far exceed capabilities of HUBO. To this end, he said the research center newly started to develop what is called the “robot intelligence” which makes robots understand orders, recognize objects and operate autonomously.
“At the old HUBO center, we have not looked into artificial intelligence research. But recently we could invite three new experts in this sector and expand the team to research robot intelligence. By adding advanced mechanical engineering technologies to autonomous systems, we will build better humanoids.”
Oh said the concept of robot intelligence is different from artificial intelligence systems that are under development by global giants such as Google and Amazon as the former is specifically about how to operate robots.
He said robots that have been made at his laboratory needed detailed orders to do certain task. Even in a simple order to pick up a cup with its holder and put in on a table, robots needed preset programs to recognize what is a cup, which part of it is holder and how to bring it to the table. But with the autonomous system, such processes will be done automatically.
Meanwhile, the team KAIST, led by Oh, participated in the Robotics Challenge hosted by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2015. With the Korean humanoid HUBO, Oh’s team competed with 24 teams around the world and topped the podium.