[Serving Robot CEO]⑥ Koga Robotics Developing Robot Brain OS Directly

Seo Ilhong, CEO of Kogarobotics
Domestic Scholar with Over 40 Years of Robot Research
Developed 'Serving Robots' Since 2019...Supplied to 'VIPS' and Others

Seo Ilhong, CEO of Kogarobotics.

"Robots also require an operating system (OS) like Android on smartphones, and we are the only serving robot company that has independently developed one."

Seo Il-hong, CEO of Coga Robotics, is a living legend in Korea's robotics industry with over 40 years of experience in robot research. He graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of Electronic Engineering in 1977 and earned his Ph.D. from KAIST in 1982. After working at Daewoo Heavy Industries for five years, he became a professor at Hanyang University in 1985. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a senior member of the Korean Academy of Engineering. He served as the 8th president of the Korean Robotics Society in 2008. Seo founded Coga Plex (now Coga Robotics) in 2017 and fully entered the robotics business. Meeting Seo at Hanyang University’s Hanyang Institute of Technology (HIT), he said, "As I approached retirement from my professorship and looked back, I realized I had focused mainly on academic activities, publishing papers, and educating students, but had not contributed much directly to society. I decided to start a business to help widely disseminate robots."

Coga Robotics initially expanded its business by supplying the ‘Kona Solution,’ a smart factory and autonomous driving-related solution, to companies. Interest in serving robots arose in 2019 through collaboration with Woori Robot. At that time, Park Seung-do, then CEO of Woori Robot (now co-CEO of Coga Robotics), saw the potential for serving robots to succeed in Korea’s self-employed business environment and proposed the business to Seo, leading to a mutual partnership. Last year, they merged with Woori Robot and changed the company name to Coga Robotics.

Coga Robotics developed six types of serving robots called ‘Servinggo,’ and among them, the ‘Servinggo Classic’ is currently in mass production. Standing 125 cm tall, Servinggo Classic assists business owners facing labor shortages by serving food and clearing tables at family restaurants like Vips, operated by CJ Foodville. It can be smartly called through integration with call bells, kiosks, and table orders. Seo explained, "It can autonomously navigate without colliding with people even in narrow buffet spaces," adding, "In one large store, a single Servinggo handled clearing 426 tables in a day."

The core technology of Coga Robotics is the robot operating system (ROS) called ‘COGA OS.’ Just as smartphones run applications on OSs like Android or iOS, robots require ROS. Introduced as open source in 2009, ROS has served as a standard for robot research and sales companies. However, the basic ROS they use processes all data based on communication, making it costly and vulnerable to security issues. To overcome these drawbacks, Coga Robotics independently developed COGA OS, a middleware-type system. Seo said, "COGA OS processes data about seven times faster than existing ROS," and "It operates smoothly even with low-spec CPUs and sensors, enhancing cost competitiveness."

Seo expressed concern about Chinese serving robots occupying more than 70% of the domestic market. While this is somewhat inevitable in the early market stage, he believes that if this structure becomes entrenched long-term, ‘information sovereignty’ could be threatened. Seo stated, "Our people cannot know what sensors Chinese robots use or what data they collect," and added, "The recent strict controls by the U.S. on Chinese robots and applications are in this context." Seo is confident that domestic technology will quickly replace Chinese serving robots. He said, "We have reached a level where we can almost catch up to the data accumulated by Chinese serving robots in Korea over about seven years within just three years," and "We will further advance Servinggo to win customers’ hearts."

Coga Robotics plans to develop various industrial and service robots beyond serving robots, including delivery and logistics robots. Seo said, "Robots are expanding their usage from factories to commercial and personal spaces," and "We plan to evolve robots accordingly and expand markets overseas."