POSCO Steelworks to Enhance Equipment Safety Management with LG Robots

Kim Ki-su, head of POSCO Process Research Institute, is experiencing driving a mobile robot. Photo by POSCO

POSCO Technical Research Institute, in collaboration with LG Electronics' Advanced Robotics Research Lab, has successfully completed a proof of concept (PoC) for remote autonomous inspection mobile robot technology aimed at equipment safety management. PoC (Proof of Concept) refers to the process of demonstrating that a product, technology, or information system can solve a specific organizational problem.

Based on the 'Business Agreement for Technology Development in Robotics, AI, and Wireless Communication' signed between POSCO Holdings and LG Electronics last May, a two-phase pre-validation of unmanned fire monitoring and remote diagnosis of power equipment using mobile robots was conducted at the underground electrical room of the 4th hot rolling mill at POSCO Gwangyang Steelworks starting in July.

The underground electrical room within the steelworks is a large space equivalent to more than two soccer fields, housing high-voltage transformers and cables. As this area requires periodic and meticulous equipment inspections, it is a place where the workload for operators conducting equipment checks is high.

Equipped with mission payloads for collecting visible and thermal imaging data, this mobile robot autonomously navigated during the pre-validation without operator intervention, avoiding obstacles and traversing rough terrain such as depressions and slopes while inspecting the operational status of various equipment located throughout the electrical room. The results were transmitted to the in-house control room, successfully performing unmanned facility management tasks and thereby proving the equipment safety inspection capabilities. The mission payload refers to sensors or end devices attached to the robot to perform its tasks.

Kim Ji-yong, Vice President and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of POSCO Holdings, stated, "We hope that through close cooperation in joint research between the two companies, we can secure safety at the steelworks and enable systematic equipment management, and furthermore, that this will serve as an opportunity to accelerate the development of domestic robot technology."

POSCO plans to continue upgrading the performance of mobile robots together with LG Electronics to safely carry out a wider range of tasks, while also advancing the development of integrated robot control and artificial intelligence technologies to utilize the vast data collected by the robots. These efforts will accelerate the digital transformation at the POSCO Group level.