Hyundai Motor Group and SOS Lab Jointly Develop 'LiDAR' for Mobile Robots

Hyundai Motor Group's compact mobility platform Moved (left) and SOS Lab's 3D high-resolution LiDAR product (right), unveiled in December last year.

Photo by Hyundai Motor Group

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] Hyundai Motor Group is collaborating with SOS Lab, a fixed LiDAR sensor specialist, to accelerate the development of mobile robots.

On the 17th, Hyundai Motor Group announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for joint development of LiDAR for mobile robots with SOS Lab at the Uiwang Research Center. The signing ceremony was attended by Hyundai Motor Group Robotics Lab Head Dongjin Hyun and SOS Lab CEO Jiseong Jeong, along with other representatives from both companies.

SOS Lab is a company that develops fixed LiDAR sensors for industrial and automotive use. Compared to traditional mechanical LiDAR, SOS Lab’s LiDAR sensors have advantages in size, weight, power consumption, price, and durability. Currently, their high-resolution 2D and 3D LiDARs are sold for industrial robots and port security sectors, and the company is recognized as a leading LiDAR developer in Korea.

This joint development agreement aims to develop a dedicated high-resolution 3D LiDAR to optimize the autonomous driving performance of Hyundai Motor Group’s mobile robots, including the small mobility platform ‘MOBED’ unveiled in December last year. The two companies plan to collaborate over two years.

For this joint development of LiDAR for mobile robots, Hyundai Motor Group will provide mobile robot hardware design technology and algorithms, while SOS Lab will contribute its expertise in cutting-edge 3D high-resolution LiDAR design technology.

Through this collaboration, Hyundai Motor Group plans to develop mobile autonomous driving robots that can move more stably over irregular surfaces and between obstacles by miniaturizing the LiDAR sensor while dramatically expanding the short-range object recognition range.

Dongjin Hyun, Executive Director of Hyundai Motor Group Robotics Lab, said, “By equipping Hyundai Motor Group’s mobile robots with optimized 3D LiDAR, we aim to take a step closer to commercializing small mobility platforms that autonomously navigate complex indoor and outdoor spaces freely. Through this, we expect to introduce various businesses and services such as parcel delivery, food delivery, and single-person mobility.”

Jiseong Jeong, CEO of SOS Lab, stated, “The robotics field is an industry that will bring innovation to the mobility market and ultimately create a better life. We will supply safe and accurate high-resolution 3D LiDAR sensors optimized for robotics.”

Meanwhile, at CES 2022, Hyundai Motor unveiled its future robotics vision, declaring its intention to realize a new ‘Mobility of Things (MoT)’ ecosystem using robots. Kia also announced at the ‘2022 CEO Investor Day’ that it plans to focus its capabilities to fully launch robotics as Hyundai Motor Group’s next-generation business.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.