Daedong Group and KIRO establish an intelligent autonomous robot company “Daedong Robotics”
Daedong Group and KIRO establish an intelligent autonomous robot company “Daedong Robotics”
- Daedong Mobility to collaborate with robot research institute KIRO via its new subsidiary to help improve the Group’s competitiveness in AI robots
- Daedong Robotics to engage in the design, development, and market development of agricultural, industrial, mobile, transport, and special mission robots
- Priority will be agricultural robots... Daedong Robotics will develop multi-purpose robots such as tractors and also deliver agricultural solutions
Daedong Group has established a new subsidiary specializing in robotics in order to pull more weight behind its agricultural and industrial AI robot businesses.
Daedong Mobility (CEO Won Yu-hyun), Daedong Group’s subsidiary specializing in smart mobility solutions, announced on November 4 that it has agreed to create Daedong Robotics, an intelligent autonomous robot company, as a joint venture (JV) with the Korea Institute of Robotics and Technology Convergence (President Yuh Jun-goo; hereinafter referred to as KIRO)[i], the top robot research institute in Korea, and set the company up as Daedong Group’s cradle for global intelligent robots.
Daedong Group is currently engaged in five future businesses, which include smart agricultural machinery, farm, mobility, AI robotics, and small construction equipment. Among the five, Daedong Mobility is promoting the electrification, intelligence, and automation of smart mobility solutions, such as ▲small tractors and work equipment, ▲gardening solutions (riding lawnmowers), ▲leisure solutions (golf carts), and ▲personal (electric scooters) smart mobility devices, all driven by its motto of “Beyond Mobility, Robotics.” The company is also looking to commercialize personal mobility chair robots and logistics delivery robots.
In order to grow the robot business at the Group level, Daedong Mobility’s parent company, Daedong, opened a Robotics Center with KIRO last year to promote joint research for core robot technologies and commercialization. In the first half of this year, Daedong AI Lab, a company specializing in AI robot software, was newly established under the Group’s platform and solution company Daedong Agtech. Then, in order to push the robot business further forward, Daedong Robotics was established with KIRO as a subsidiary of Daedong Mobility.
On October 31, Daedong Mobility and KIRO signed a business agreement, and in order to elevate cooperation to the level of a strategic alliance, KIRO and an investment association (an investment association mainly comprised of robot experts) are planning to participate as initial investors in Daedong Robotics by contributing robot-related patents and patent usage rights, and investment capital. By doing so, Daedong Group is hoping to build a new model of business cooperation that could shape the future robot market as it creates synergy between the private sector and research institutes.
First, the Group plans to launch agricultural robots used for cultivating vegetables, fruits, and greens, which are currently a priority for the company, to replace human labor. This will help reduce work hours while increasing agricultural productivity. Furthermore, Daedong Group wants to enhance the sensing and operational capacity of robots with AI and link them to Daedong’s smart farming technology to provide crop-specific growth monitoring and cultivation strategy solutions. The Group also wants to commercialize multipurpose agricultural robots compatible with various work modules such as transportation/pest control/harvesting/weeding/spraying, just as a tractor is able to add value with new attachments.
Daedong Robotics will participate in the research and development of “robotizing traditional agricultural machinery” such as tractors, combines, and rice transplanters with autonomous work, remote control, and cluster driving technologies led by Daedong, and seek to advance robot technology. Daedong’s new JV is looking to leverage its business capacity and take better advantage of market conditions to bring in over KRW 100 billion in sales by 2029.
Meanwhile, Daedong Group is building a close cooperative system between Daedong Robotics and Daedong AI Lab to accelerate the Group's AI transformation and to create synergy in developing AI platforms and operational SW for agriculture, mobility, and advanced robot products. To that end, it hopes to use big data from agricultural and non-agricultural fields.
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[i] What is KIRO? KIRO started as the Pohang Intelligent Robot Research Institute in 2005, and was promoted to the Korea Institute of Robotics and Technology Convergence (KIRO), the only specialized robot research institute in Korea under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in 2012 pursuant to Article 42 of the Industrial Technology Innovation Promotion Act. Over the past 20 years, KIRO has conducted research on robot convergence technology with commercial potential, and developed commercial technologies for over 40 different robot products. With four specialized areas, agricultural automation robots, underwater robots, disaster safety robots, and piping/construction robots, KIRO is maturing into a global robot research institute.