Naver to unveil small humanoid robot next month

(KAIT)

South Korean internet giant Naver Corp. is expected to introduce a humanoid robot capable of delivering coffee to employees at its headquarters by the end of this year, the company said on Thursday.

The robot, developed by Naver Labs Corp. in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), will debut at DAN 25 conference on November 6.

“Since 2019, we’ve been working with MIT through an industrial collaboration to develop a small-sized humanoid robot, and an identical robot has now been fully built,” said Naver Labs CEO Seok Sang-ok during the Digital Insight Forum hosted by the Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT) in Seoul. “Starting at the end of this year, it will begin operating inside Naver’s 1784 headquarters.”

Seok added that the company is currently redesigning the robot and starting next year, it will deliver lunch boxes and coffee alongside Naver’s existing delivery robot, Rookie.

The humanoid’s development was a joint project among Naver Labs, MIT, and KAIST. MIT handled the hardware and basic control systems while KAIST worked on the control algorithms.

The robot will operate in connection with Naver’s robot cloud platform, ARC, and its web-based robot operating system ARC Mind.

“ARC places the robot’s brain in the cloud,” Seok said. “Through a dedicated 5G network, robots can connect to cloud intelligence with ultra-low latency. Even a small robot equipped only with a camera, motor, and 5G module can use the cloud as its brain.”

Founded as a research center for Naver, Naver Labs spun off as a separate entity in 2017 to focus its research on ambient intelligence in areas such as autonomous driving, robotics, and artificial intelligence.