Robot dog Spot patrols Kia auto plant late at night

South Korean carmaker Kia Corp. ’s plant in Hwaseong, a southern suburb of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province, is guarded late at night by Spot, a four-legged walking robot made by Boston Dynamics, a US engineering and robotics company acquired in June 2021 by Hyundai Motor Group.  

Industry sources on Monday said Kia deployed this month four Spots to patrol Autoland Hwaseong, where they conduct inspections twice a day at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. when management and staff are not at work.

Spot’s main task is to inspect lines vulnerable to fire and explosion and check hazardous sites prone to a serious disaster. The device can independently patrol a designated area using artificial intelligence (AI)-based navigation.

“Spot’s movement of its flexible joints allows detection of narrow spaces where people have difficulty moving around at industrial sites and blind spots easy to miss with the human eye,” a Kia source said.

The automaker said Spot will allow human guards on the early morning shift to perform their duties more conveniently. The company in 2021 ran the robot on a pilot basis at its plant in Gwangmyeong, another suburb in Gyeonggi.

Spot’s AI processing service unit uses AI-based software from Hyundai Motor Group’s Robotics Lab.

Write to Sungsu Bae at baebae@hankyung.com