POSCO to raise steel plant safety with robots

POSCO Research Institute, a think tank under South Korea’s top steelmaker POSCO Group, on Sunday said it signed an agreement with Withrobot and Aidin Robotics on joint R&D of robots used for safety management of workplaces such as steel mills.

Founded by former Ph.D. robotics students at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Withrobot possesses innovative technologies such as edge boards for robots and optimization of artificial intelligence networks. Aidin was set up by advisers and doctorate holders in the field at Sungkyunkwan University.

Under the agreement, POSCO will jointly develop smart wire robots with Withrobot. The devices use video, sound, thermal infrared and Lidar sensors to monitor accidents at manufacturing sites while moving along a wire path on the ceiling.

With Aidin, POSCO Group is also developing quadrupedal walking robots to inspect steelmaking facilities by accessing places that humans cannot. Certain steelworks facilities are difficult to access for inspection by staff due to hazardous factors like high temperatures.

“While streamlining the development of intelligent mobile robotic solutions based on data, we will also continue leading digital transformation at the group level to raise working environment safety and productivity,“ POSCO Group said.

Write to Jae-Fu Kim at hu@hankyung.com