POSCO DX to develop robot system for high-risk process

[Courtesy of POSCO]

POSCO DX Co., a digital transformation (DX) unit of South Korea’s POSCO Group, is accelerating efforts to develop a robot system for high-risk industrial sites.

POSCO DX announced Wednesday that it will collaborate with Chosun Refractories Co. to jointly develop an industrial robot automation system for use in the steelmaking process.

The company will develop a robotic automation system that will be applied to the smelting, steelmaking, and rolling processes of steel mills.

The processes involve handling molten iron at high temperatures, making it a high-risk environment with a significant demand for robot automation. However, the challenging conditions and environment on-site have made it difficult to implement automation using robots.

The initial focus of the collaboration will be on the rolling process, which produces steel slabs, a semi-finished steel product.

The development of this automation system aims to use robots to automatically replace nozzles in case of nozzle clogging, a task that was traditionally performed manually.

Manual replacement of nozzles led to inevitable disruptions in the process, affecting productivity.