S. Korea, US to launch $6 mln joint project for disaster-response robots

By Park Sae-jin Posted : October 18, 2016, 10:21 Updated : October 18, 2016, 10:21

KAIST's humanoid disaster response robot 'DRC-HUBO' carries out complex tasks at the DARPA Robotics Challenge in 2015. [Courtesy of KAIST]
 



South Korea and the United States will inject six million US dollars into a three-year joint project to develop robotic technologies for disaster response, Seoul's trade ministry said on Tuesday.

Each side agreed to spend $1.0 million every year over three years at a meeting of US and South Korean government officials in Seoul, the trade ministry said. The US side was led by Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen Welby and South Korea headed by Kim Jeong-hwan, a trade ministry director general.

Kim said robot technologies would play an important role in handling disasters that restrict human access.

The meeting followed a deal in April 2015 to develop a next generation robotics system for disaster environments. The project involves research centers and universities such as the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States had held its annual DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) from 2012. The challenge requires semi-autonomous ground robots to carry out complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments. The agency organized the challenge following a nuclear disaster in Fukushima, hoping to advance the field of disaster robotics.

In 2015, a KAIST team won the DRC contest with its humanoid robot beating 22 competitors from five countries. KAIST's transformable DRC-HUBO robot carried out complex tasks opening doors and drilling holes while other robots lost their balance.

​Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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