Korea police, army robots to debut in 5 years

By the 2010s, Korea is expecting to see security robots assisting police and the military, patrolling the neighborhoods, chase criminals and going on recon missions on the battlefield.

The government also seeks to build combat robots. They will take the shape of a dog or a horse, with six or eight legs or wheels.

"The robots will be directed by a remote control system or move autonomously via their own artificial intelligence systems," said a Ministry of Information and Communication spokeperson.

Just like household robots in development in Korea, the robots will receive most sensing and processing capabilities via a Web connection. Only the ability of movement will be located in the robot.

"Three kinds of households machines will commercially debut this October. They will sell for 1-2 million won*, a price that will not scare off customers. The low price is possible since they are empowered by outside networks instead of incorporated software," added the MIC.

The wheeled robots will be used for various applications: cleaning rooms, health-care programs, Internet connection, home monitoring, reading books to kids and they can even order Chinese food and pizza by connecting to the local network.

"Recently Japan unveiled household service robots priced at up to 10 million won, almost 10 times as expensive as ours. So you can guess the competitiveness of our network robots," Hyung said.

* ($ c. 1,013.253 - 2,26.500)
Via The Korea Times. Image from a 3D animation.