International Robot Contest 2011 to be held at KINTEX in October
International Robot Contest 2011 to be held at KINTEX in October
  • Korea IT Times (info@koreaittimes.com)
  • 승인 2011.08.26 16:09
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2011 International Robot Contest

The 6th International Robot Contest 2011 will be held at KINTEX in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province for a four-day run from Oct. 27.

About 10,000 Koreans and foreigners from 5,000 teams are expected to participate in the international robot contest, hosted by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and organized by the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA), according to Joo doug-young, the head of KIRIA.

The contest supported by the Korean Intellectual Property Office consists of 24 events in 10 competing categories - the Grand Challenge, Humanoid Robot Competition, Seoul Tech Intellectual Robot Competition, Intelligence-type SoC Robot War, Exploration Robot Competition, Education-purpose Robot Teachers' Competition, Youth Robot Competition, Creative Robot Exhibition with Family, FIRA Invitational and Korea-Japan-China Humanoid Survival Attack.

In an interview with the Korea IT Times, KIRIA President Joo said, "In 2006, 942 teams participated in 21 events of the first International Robot Contest. Since then, some 30,000 players from 14,820 teams attended the 45 events."

Noting that KIRIA aims at integrating and managing about 40 robot contests across the country, he said, "Our company will faithfully play its role to expand robot educational market through spread of robot mind to all people, finding out excellent robot-related manpower, and development and application of new robot technology."

To enhance the International Robot Contest, the President, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Knowledge Economy presents awards to winners of the robot competition every year.

"KIRIA is greatly contributing to activating robot sports and fostering global robot-related manpower through systematization of the robot contest and finding out  robot standardization," said the KIRIA head.

"In the future, we will actively push for linkage of the International Robot Contest with foreign robot contests to activate and upgrade the domestic robot industry," said Joo.

Status of intelligent robot industry

Joo Duke-young, President of Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement(KIRIA)

During the period from 2006 when the statistics on the robot industry began to be compiled and 2010, the annual growth rate of robots stood at 41 percent for use of manufacturing, 301 percent for professional services, 105 percent for private services, and 18 percent for robot parts.

"In particular, robot sales surged by 97 percent to 933.6 billion won in 2010 from a year earlier," Joo said.

This was largely ascribable to an increase in the number of robot makers and a steady rise in the number of robot experts.

"The National Assembly's enactment of the law to supply and promote intelligent robots and the establishment of the robot industry department as a government agency also greatly contributed to the rapid growth of the domestic intelligent robot industry," he explained.

"To shift the strategy for development of the domestic intelligent robot industry from the past catch-up strategy started in the conventional industry to a leading one, we will pursue a strategic approach toward robots for professional and private services," said the KIRIA president.

"At the same time, we will pay more attention to the market verification project, which can reflect consumers' responses to production, in addition to finding out a variety of contents," he noted.

Commenting that large-scale spaces to create demands for robots such as Robot Land (2013) and Yeosu Ocean Expo Robot Exhibition Hall (2012) are being built, he said, "We should concentrate our efforts on commercializing robot products on a short-term basis and accumulate technology ability on a long-term basis. By doing so, the domestic robot industry can play the role of locomotive as the next-generation growth engine industry."

International status of robot industry

We shouldn

International Federation of Robotics (IFR) estimated that the world's robot market will grow from $9.4 billion in 2008 to $100 billion in 2018.

"Advanced countries, including the U.S., Japan and the EU, are leading the original robot technology with their affluent funds and excellent manpower. Based on such competitiveness, they are introducing a series of success stories through commercialization of derivative technology," Joo said.

In the meantime, the domestic robot industry has shortened the technology gap with those of advanced countries from four years in 2003 to 2.5 years in 2009.

Along with this, they achieved outstanding results in terms of fostering robot-specialized companies.

"However, Korea's original technology related to intelligent robots is still far behind that of advanced countries mainly owing to the limitation of robot market expansion, chiefly led by individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises," he said.

"To rectify such problems and strengthen global competitiveness of the domestic robot industry, accordingly, the government needs to extend full supports for local robot developers who are trying to secure original technology. Along with this, the government should actively find out best practices in the initial robot market and transfer such technology to other robot makers," he said.

"Meanwhile, the private sector, for its part, should make all-out efforts to find out robot business models and contents and push for an effective strategy to expand the intelligent robot market," the KIRIA head stressed.

Robot pilot project

Meanwhile, the government plans to spend 100 billion won on robot-related pilot projects to bolster growth of the cutting edge industry. The joint support plan outlined by the knowledge economy, education, environment, health and defense ministries calls for state funds to be made available for various projects up till 2013, with 30 billion won to be earmarked for this year.

"Robotics is a high-tech, value-added convergence industry with considerable growth potential that could receive a boost from state assistance," a senior official of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said. He pointed out that in the past, the government had limited itself to research and development (R&D), which was not enough to create new market opportunities. Korea had allocated 740 billion won for R&D in the robotic sector since 2002, but had only spent 10 billion won on related pilot projects that could fuel actual demand.

Under the new master plan, government ministries will provide funding for large-scale pilot projects worth up to 2 billion won from just 100-200 million won worth of assistance offered in the past. Pilot projects will involve such areas as education, defense, firefighting, security, manufacturing, farming and medical services, he said.


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