Robots, Games and Future Networks in Korea

Korea's robotics industry is in the news again.  In an article entitled "Korea ups its robotics game," Businessweek reported that "South Korea is embracing robotics with the same intensity that made it a force in high-speed broadband, widescreen televisions, and smartphones. Robot Land, a state-subsidized 758 billion won ($735 million) theme park featuring futuristic rides as well as research and development labs, is set to open in 2016. The government is also investing 1.1 trillion won to support the nation’s robotics industry. That industry has doubled in size since 2009, with revenue reaching 2.1 trillion won in 2012, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy."

Most of the robots in South Korea to date are industrial ones.  As shown in the accompanying bar chart published by The Economist, Korea has more industrial robots per employee than any other country. (click to see a full-size version)  It is now becoming clear that robots have uses and applications across many sectors of industry, the economy and society. With its aging population, Korea hopes to make much greater use of service robots here at home and to export these services to other nations.
This is where Korea's world-leading broadband infrastructure and its strong online game industry come into play.  In April of this year a report by the  state-run Korea Finance Corporation received quite a bit of attention. It noted that the country's export of computer and mobile games accounted for 57 percent of South Korea's overseas shipment of cultural goods, which came to $4.6 billion in 2012.
The many  benefits of networked robots, including the service variety, are not difficult to imagine.  In fact, the military drones used so extensively by the U.S. in recent years represent one type of networked robot.  However, if one thinks instead of a humanoid robot caring for an elderly parent or relative at a distant location, then the application of techniques from the increasingly immersive and involving world of online games comes into play (no pun intended).  Korea is already a world leader in broadband networks, and highly competitive in both the robotics and online games industries.  It appears highly likely that these industry sectors will converge, and with related developments will shape future networks.

English Teaching Robots in South Korea

South Korea has targeted the robotics industry, specifically intelligent service robots, as a growth industry for the future.  An interesting recent development in this field is the introduction of Engkey, and English-teaching robot, into elementary school classrooms in Seoul.  Engkey is a penguin-shaped robot developed by a team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology's (KIST) Center for Intelligent Robotics that recognizes the human voice.   Read the New York Times account for an interesting description of how Engkey interacts with school children.
The introduction of Engkey (click on graphic at left to see a full-size version) was part of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology's plans to use robots as teaching aids.  In February, the Ministry began deploying hundreds of them as part of a plan to equip all 8,400 of the nation's kindergartens with robots by 2013.
Work at the Center for Intelligent Robotics illustrates Korea's ambitious plans for the robotics industry. Last month, it announced a trial service for 11 types of intelligent robots this year. They include “kiosk robots” to roam amusement parks selling tickets, and “robo soldiers” that will man part of the 155-mile border with North Korea with a never-sleeping camera eye, night vision and lethal fire power.

Korea Aims for Top Three Nations in Robotics

The Korean government aims to develop its domestic robotics industry into one of the world’s top three by 2013, officials said in April 2009. According to an article in the Joongang Ilbo, the government plans to spend 1 trillion won on research and development in the robot sector over the next five years, which will likely allow Korea to take a 13.3 percent share of the worldwide robotics market, according to the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy’s report to President Lee Myung-bak. In terms of production, the Korean robot industry ranked fifth as of last year, followed by Japan, the United States, Germany and Italy, according to the ministry.
Korea’s global market share stands at 8.9 percent, with exports topping $180 million.
More state research investment would help raise the size of the domestic market, from the current 896 billion won to 4 trillion won in 2013, while the world market for robotics is expected to reach $30 billion by the same year.  Since 2002, the government has invested an average of 82.1 billion won annually in robots. Specifically, the government plans to develop robots that are capable of performing surgery, acting as security guards, farming, doing housework and navigating submarines and aircraft.

Korea's prospects in the robotics industry

A number of ICT sector companies, including Google, Softbank in Japan and European firms are moving into robotics.  South Korea is also a leader in this race, as described in an report published by the Korea Joongang Daily.  In many respects, this is a natural outgrowth of developments in digital broadband networks and consumer electronics. The new digital and highly mobile networks that are transforming life around the world are naturally connected to all kinds of sensors and the growing "Internet of things."  Anyone who has accessed images from a webcam or surveillance video camera, used a small robot to clean floors in an apartment, or controlled a thermostat remotely via their smart phone, can easily imagine the convenience and value of  controlling an intelligent robot from a distance.
For Korea the move toward networked and service robots it is also a response to the overall demographic trend toward an older society.  As shown in the accompanying graphic (click to see a full-size version), the greatest growth in the robotics industry here over the past several years is for personal service robots, in anticipation of a large market in the provision of personal services for elderly individuals.
The article provides a nice overview of some current developments in the robotics industry here and gives a sense of where South Korea fits in the global picture.

"I Am Robot"

I just finished watching the last fifteen minutes or so of a television program called "I Am Robot," on YTN. The program itself was produced by a science TV channel. The segment I watched featured a robot festival at a large exhibition hall somewhere in Korea. Students from several universities entered their robots in a variety of competitions, including relay races, basketball, dancing, music and so forth. Some of the robots could mimic human moves, if one of the students wore a specially designed electronic suit. Others were controlled from a small hand-held panel. A few things impressed me about this robot festival.

• One was the obvious enthusiasm of the college students for their projects.
• Another was how human-like some of the movements by the robots were. These were all humanoid robots, with two arms, two legs, and most of the major joints that a human being has.
• The audience for the robot competitions included quite a number of grade-school children and their enjoyment of the festival could be seen on their faces. Might this competition influence some of them to pursue a career in mechanical engineering and make a future contribution to robotics?

Korea is investing a great deal these days to develop the field of robotics. See, for example, the activities of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory (지능로봇 연구실) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Korea University. http://robotics.korea.ac.kr/index.html?lang=eng Most of the other top universities have similar efforts underway, not to mention the work of government research institutes. Robots promise to play an interesting role in Korea's future information society as networks become ubiquitous.

Robotics and Korean Creativity

I have frequently heard criticisms of the Korean approach to education that suggest it relies too much on memorization and testing and does not encourage creativity.  That is partly why the Washington Post article about Virginia Tech professor Dennis Hong caught my eye this morning.  As I suspected, he is one of the more than six million Koreans living overseas, away from their home country.  The article describes how Professor Hong grew up and eventually became a star in humanoid robotics in the U.S.
Some years ago, I had an interesting encounter with Sangbae Kim who, as a Stanford graduate student, was centrally involved in the creation of Stickybot, a gecko-like robot.   Dr. Kim was kind enough to stop by my office at the Fulbright building and we had a fascinating discussion of his background and how he became interested in this field.   He is now a professor at MIT and in  charge of their new Biomimetic Robotics Lab. The Youtube video of Stickybot embedded in my blog post is still worth viewing one more time.
Draw your own conclusions about Korean creativity.

Korea's world lead in industrial robot density

 

As shown in this bar chart published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) in its World Robotics  2022, South Korea continues to lead the world in industrial robot density (robots installed per 10,000 employees).  It leads by quite a large margin over Singapore, Japan, Germany and China, the next top ranking countries.  As explained by the IFR "The Republic of Korea hit an all-time high of 1,000 industrial robots per 10,000 employees in 2021. This is more than three times the number reached in China and makes the country number one worldwide. With its globally recognized electronics industry and a distinct automotive sector, the Korean economy profits from two large customer industries for industrial robots."

Another graphic provided by the IFR shows the overwhelming importance of the ICT and Automotive sectors in Korea's industrial robot installations.  For those interested, the full World Robotics 2022 report provides similar data for other countries, allowing comparative analysis.

Korea's Growth Engines: Robotics

South Korea's robotics industry may be set to take off and could become an important growth engine for the nation's economy. On February 26, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy announced that a law intended to encourage the development and distribution of intelligent robots had passed the National Assembly. In a 2006 article, the New York Times noted that If all goes according to plan, robots will be in every South Korean household between 2015 and 2020. That is the prediction, at least, of the Ministry of Information and Communication, which has grouped more than 30 companies, as well as 1,000 scientists from universities and research institutes, under its wing. Some want to move even faster. In December of last year the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) announced that it concluded a contract with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in order to promote the international standardization of network robot. To do so, they plan to organize a specialist group and jointly hold workshops. Although South Korea's current market share in the robotics industry worldwide is small, it appears to have great potential. As Korea.com noted, "Korea’s potential in the robot industry is among the best in the world, armed with highly developed associated industries, such as consumer electronics, automobiles and communication equipment. The country’s superior IT infrastructure and rapid acceptance of new technologies will help boost growth, too." More on this industry in future posts.

Korea exports educational robots to Costa Rica

I have long felt that the robotics industry, and more specifically service robots, represent a major future growth engine for Korea, as indicated by a number of prior posts (viewable at this link) The recent victory of KAIST's Hubo in the 2015 Darpa Challenge provided dramatic video evidence of how far the robotics industry has progressed.
In another sign of the times, as reported by The Korea Joongang Daily, SK Telecom will export smart bots to Costa Rica for the training of teachers and use in schools there. According to the article, "According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the two parties reached an agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on Thursday to send some 1,500 educational robots, known as Albert, to 6,000 students and 600 teachers over the next three years. The first shipment begins this month. Albert is designed to help teach math, including numbers, basic calculations and pattern recognition, among other subjects."  (click on the accompanying graphic for a full size version) Furthermore, "A total of $2.4 million will be spent to train teachers in the region and develop an official education curriculum that utilizes the bot. IDB will spend $1.5 million in developing the curriculum, while the Trade Ministry and SK Telecom will give $750,000 in providing the robots. The Costa Rican government will kick in $150,000 to train teachers."   This is far from a frivolous exercise.  South Korea has years of experience with the use of robots in schools, as documented by some of my earlier posts.  Given the projected size of the worldwide market, this is a development worth watching.

Stickybot: The Global Nature of New Technology

Stickybot" is a quadruped robot capable of climbing smooth surfaces, such as glass, acrylic and whiteboard using directional adhesive.  What is more interesting for the purpose of this post is that Sangbae Kim, a Korean Ph.D. student at Stanford University, was the lead designer of this amazing little robot.  A graduate of Yonsei University, Sangbae has already completed an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford and is working on his Ph.D with a special focus on bio-inspired robots.  If you doubt at all that this is inspirational work, please view the embedded video of "Stickybot" in action.  In the mid-1990s I taught for two years at the National University of Singapore and on more than one occasion I fell asleep after watching a tiny gecko crawl across the ceiling of my bedroom.  The biological similarities to real geckos that Kim Sangbae and his team have captured are truly amazing!  For those of you wishing to explore this in more depth, I recommend Mr. Kim's website.
All of this is very significant in light of my earlier posts about South Korea's goals for its robotics industry. Korea has declared its intent to focus on service robots, including networked robots.  It requires only a little imagination to think about what future versions of "Stickybot" and other biomimetic robots might offer in this regard.
Kim Sangbae has, appropriately, received many accolades for his work.  What I'd like to stress here are the following aspects of this story.

• It shows clearly that advanced technology development these days is inherently global or transnational. 
• Korea's future technology development and competitiveness will draw on students educated in Korea, the U.S. and other parts of the world.
• It seems that South Korea has a bright future in robotics.

I hope you all enjoy the video!  More on this topic in future posts.

English-Teaching Robots for Korea by 2018?

An article in today's issue of The Korea Times proclaims "Robots to Replace Native English Teachers."   Participants in a recent robotics forum speculated that, by about 2015 robots should be able to help English teachers in the classroom and that by 2018 they should be able to teach on their own, while communicating with students."  Robots are already available in English classes through a pilot project in Masan, aimed at testing the viability of robotic teachers.   Some participants in the robotics forum also saw English -teaching robots as a remedy for the lack of English teachers in small rural farming and fishing villages.
After reading this article, I remain very skeptical.  Nothing is mentioned about the current state of the art in machine translation and the considerable challenges of teaching English to native speakers of Korean.  The linguistic and pedagogical challenges of teaching English would seem to be too large to be overcome by developments in software and artificial intelligence in less than a decade.  In any event, we'll all see.

Google sells Motorola Mobility, Agrees with Samsung on Patent Accord

Two developments in recent days offer a powerful commentary on the future of the global ICT sector, with direct implications for South Korea's leading smartphone manufacturers.
First, as reported in the Korea Joongang Daily, Samsung Electronics has signed a 10-year patent cross license agreement with Google that will prevent the two companies from waging a patent war against one another, a move the Korean tech firm believes will help further isolate archrival Apple. As reported in the Joongang Daily, the agreement that covers “a broad range of technologies and business areas” with Google. The “mutually beneficial agreement” covers not only existing patents but also new patents to be filed by 2023, Samsung said. The deal, analysts say, will help the two companies improve on each other’s weak points: software in the case of Samsung and hardware for Google. But Samsung is also expected to benefit from some of the hardware technologies that Google has worked on in recent years, such as robotics and wearable devices.
The second development was the announcement by Google that it is selling its Motorola Mobility division to China's Lenovo for $2.91 billion.  As reported by Forbes, "Motorola Mobility was Google’s largest ever acquisition at $12.5 billion in 2012. Page says the decision was made because of the “super competitive” nature of the smartphone market. “Motorola will be better served by Lenovo—which as a rapidly growing smartphone business and is the largest (and fastest-growing) PC manufacturer in the world,” Page said today. “This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere.” The sale doesn’t mean that Google isn’t interested in making hardware to run Android. Earlier this month, Google spent $3.2 billion to acquire smart thermostat maker Nest and bought several robotics companies last year. Page made a point of noting that Google’s vision for smart devices like the Nest and Google Glass, its Internet-connected eyewear, remains a focus for the company."
The most immediately apparent implication of this move for Korea is its impact on the nation's smartphone manufacturers, led by Samsung and LG.

Korea's Ambitious Goals for the Robotics Industry

As reported in The Korea Times, the Knowledge Economy Ministry has announced that it will channel $26.3 million next year alone in an effort to become one of the three world powers in the robot industry by 2018.  This has been one of the government's goals for several years now, as noted in earlier posts.
Korea is seeking to capitalize on the global transition from a focus on mass production models to service robots.  Presently, Korea's global market share is about ten percent.  It seeks to double that figure by 2018.  That means that Asia’s fourth-largest economy is looking to earn as much as $20 billion a year in 2018 as the world market is expected to grow to $100 billion by then from today’s $10 billion.
The article notes that growth of the robotics industry is expected to positively effect related businesses such as motors, sensors, actuators, displays and chips.

KAIST's raptor robot exceeds 28 mph (46 km/h), faster than Usain Bolt

Since I will leave KAIST near the end of June to join the faculty of SUNY-Korea in Songdo, you'll permit me to display a bit of pride in a recent KAIST accomplishment.  This time it is scientists from KAIST's Mechatronics, Systems and Control lab who are in the news. They have built a robot modelled after the velociraptor dinosaur that, as shown in the accompanying YouTube video, can run at speeds up to 28 miles per hour.  As reported by the International Business Times of the UK, this is faster than Usain Bolt.  The report also noted that the Raptor robot developed at KAIST, while not as fast as Boston Dynamics cheetah robot, is built very differently. "Cheetah is a four-legged quadroped robot powered by hydraulic actuators and is heavy, but the Raptor only has two legs, which are made from lightweight composite material, and it weighs just 3kg. The Raptor also has a 'tail' – a spinning rod – that keeps its body stable as it navigates around and over obstacles, according to Jongwon Park, a PhD student at KAIST's Mechatronics, Systems, and Control Laboratory." As I've argued in previous posts, Korea's robotics industry needs to be considered in relation to the evolution of its broadband networks and digital convergence in this country. The two will eventually work hand in hand in many ways.

World's highest density of industrial robots

As shown in the graphic to the left (click for a full size version) South Korea as of 2014 had the highest density of industrial robots in the world, and by quite a margin over second place Japan.  Other data from the IFR World Robotics surveys makes it clear that, on a global basis, the automotive and electronics industries drive most of the use of industrial robots.  I expect that more recent data will show Korea continuing in the lead.  What is even more interesting to me, for the subject of a later post, is where Korea stands in world rankings on the density of service robots.

Hubo: The crown jewel of Korean robotics

Here's a digital toast or acknowledgement to one of Korea's truly great accomplishments last year.   Some of you may wish to re-read my June 2015 blog post.   To everyone else, I suggest viewing this excellent Arirang TV video about the accomplishment.   Happy (Solar and Lunar) New Year!

Robots and disaster risk reduction

I didn't anticipate another post this year on the topic of robotics, but was prompted to write this one by an item in the news that featured the work of Professor Sangbae Kim at MIT, a young researcher whom I had the privilege to meet a few years ago.  In 2009, while he was still a graduate student at Stanford University, I ran across a video of the robot called "Stickybot" that he and his steam had developed.  I met Sangbae Kim and did two posts on the topic, in 2009 and 20011.  Little did I realize at that time how our paths might cross again.  Over the past two years, my department at SUNY Korea has collaborated closely with the UN office for disaster risk reduction in Songdo, SafeNet Forum, and the Red Cross (both the Korean Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies) and our colleagues from my department at Stony Brook University in New York.  With Stony Brook, we're developing a new master's degree emphasis on digital technologies for disaster risk reduction.  Stay tuned!

The software challenge: more on robots, games, networks and code

In a recent post I alluded to the convergence of South Korea's robotics industry with its advanced digital networks and the online game industry.  These developments relate directly to the challenge Korea faces to become more competitive in software and content, versus hardware.  As evidence of the nation's need to make this shift, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning has encouraged corporations to place more emphasis on software.  In response, SK Telecom began a pilot project last year and, as reported by The Korea Bizwire, "... has just announced that it would launch a Smart Robot Coding School, a program for software education by utilizing its smart robots, Albert and Atti. The operator recognized the importance of education in the course of developing smart robots using smartphones as its brain, which made the company come up with its own curriculum including software programming programs for starters, application use for programming, and smart robots operated by the application. The curriculum operated by SK Telecom has 12 steps from the basic stage for beginners to code computer programs by using the application to the advanced level to develop various applied computer programs related to other subjects such as Korean language, music and mathematics." SK Telecom also plans to export the program and its robots to Taiwan through a company there.
A key issue here is whether the program by SK and other similar programs in Korea will succeed in sparking interest among students in the possibility of a career as a software engineer or computer programmer.  These days, interest in those fields seems to be lagging, even though efficient and smoothly running software code underlies all of the broadband and mobile "smart" services that people increasingly depend upon.

Robot workers in Korea

Empirical data show that Korean workers put in some of the longest work hours of any country in the world.  However, Korea's industrial robots work even longer!  Furthermore, the use of industrial robots has grown in large part because the main engine of Korea's export-led economy is the ICT sector.  As shown in this graphic from Statista, (click for a larger version) Korea continues to lead the world in manufacturing robot density (the number of installed industrial robots per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing industry).  As noted in the Executive Summary World Robotics 2018 Industrial Robots, as of 2016 the electrical/electronics industry became the most important customer for industrial robots in almost all major Asian markets, e.g. China, Japan, Republic of Korea. Korea leads the way and Singapore has been rapidly catching up with about 90 percent of industrial robots in both countries installed in the electronics industry.  Writing this short post reminds me of the day I spent with Goldstar (now LG ) before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, including a tour of their manufacturing facility for VHS video recorders.   I was struck at the time by the extensive use of robots in the manufacture of videocassette recorders.   Looking ahead, where will this all lead?   Hint:  Korea will likely be a world leader in the emergence of the Internet of things (IoT)

Naver hires MIT professor Kim Sangbae: Naver Labs in the robotics industry

As reported in the Korea Joongang Daily, Naver Labs has hired MIT professor Kim Sangbae as a technical consultant.  Readers of this blog will know that I met and first posted in 2009 about Mr. Kim's role in the creation of a Gecko-like robot called "Stickybot." (see earlier posts here)  According to the Korea Joongang Daily article, Professor Kim will be advising on a range of possibilities, including the use of bio-mimetic robots to analyze location data and help in drawing high definition 3D maps for autonomous vehicles.  Congratulations to both Naver and Prof. Kim!