Added AI to the robot...Responding to industrial accidents quickly and safely

[Anchor]
Every year, large and small accidents continue to occur at industrial sites such as factories and power plants.

It is expected that domestic researchers will be able to respond to industrial accidents faster and more safely by combining AI technology that detects risks with robots.

This is reporter Park Na-yeon.

[Reporter]
A red mark appears on the oil refining facility instrument panel.

This is a warning that the pressure measurement was not done properly.

When the safety patrol robot delivers the video taken with its own camera to the control center, the supervisory patrol robot with long arms quickly moves to the scene.

It is a 'multi-robot collaboration technology' developed by domestic researchers.

If the AI module determines that there is a problem with the image taken by the first robot, it automatically sends the second robot to retake it without external manipulation.

At this time, the second robot, the supervised patrol robot, can shoot super-close images thanks to its long robotic arm.

Using a robotic arm with a camera, you can analyze and photograph the object more precisely.

In addition, the "abnormal situation judgment AI technology" can be used to check whether the worker in the video is properly dressed in safety clothes and detect abnormal behaviors such as collapsing.

[Kim Kye-kyung / Lead researcher at the Social Robotics Laboratory at the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute] It will be a technology that determines whether the current operation of the facility is normal, strange, or dangerous, and the mobile robot goes to take pictures and informs you right away.]

The researchers have paid attention to the problem that facilities with a lot of harmful substances, such as oil refineries and petrochemical power plants, have to be inspected by humans, which poses a high risk of accidents.

In addition, existing industrial site robots were divided into performance roles such as filming or moving only the arms, making it difficult to manage them integrated.

[Seo Bum-soo / Head of Field Robotics Research at Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute: Some pipes leak gases, liquids, and harmful substances, and some gauges need to be checked by people on a daily basis. Our development goal was now to apply those things to various missions using various robots.

The researchers expected that automation of safety management will be possible in the future as the developed robot technology can also check whether industrial facilities such as temperature, pressure, and water level are operating normally.

Next year, it plans to transfer and commercialize technology to facility security companies and monitoring companies through additional demonstration at the Ulsan refinery.

I'm Park Nayeon of YTN Science.


Video coverage: Kim Young-hwan