Robots may not be ready yet for the great takeover of jobs that some people fear, but in South Korea, where there are 1,000 robots per 10,000 workers, service robots are finding a role. 

The ISO defines service robots as robots that perform tasks for people and aren't used in industrial automation. Service robots can be completely autonomous or require some human input and robot vacuum cleaner and robot mowers fall into this category. South Korea is keen on having robots in the workplace, in both industrial and service roles because of a shortfall in human labor force.

Naver, the internet conglomerate that operates the most popular search engine in South Korea, is a pioneer in the field of service robots. Its headquarters building, called 1784, was intentionally designed with service robots in mind with features that make it easier for robots to navigate and perform tasks, like delineated routes and charging stations.

As this video shows, NAVER 1784 is is teeming with service robots, particularly in the Starbucks on the building's second floor where more than 100 service robots called "Rookie" collect drinks to be delivered to meeting rooms around the building.

Whereas Rookie is essentially a bin on wheels, Ambidex, also seen in action in the video, is a dual-arm robot that is capable of human-like manipulation and can be trained to do mundane tasks such as peeling potatoes and washing dishes. As is made clear in the next video, unlike many industrial robots, Ambidex uses cables instead of bulky motors for movement. This makes it lightweight and safe to operate around humans. 

To promote the use of service robots, NAVER Labs has developed a robot operating system, ArcMind. It features a highly scalable development environment based on a web-platform, robot-specific web APIs for hardware control, and various solutions from the NAVER Cloud Platform.

The message of this video is:

ARC Mind synchronizes the paradigm of robot service development with the web ecosystem into an infinite world.

So perhaps these robots will take over the world, washing our dishes, peeling the potatoes and delivering coffee to office workers. In which case I for one would like to welcome our robot overlords.

More Information

NAVER labs

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