Seoul City to Establish 'Autonomous Delivery Robot' Pilot Zones in High Foot Traffic Areas COEX and Teheran-ro

Seoul City, Woowa Brothers, LG Electronics, WTC Seoul, Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation, Gangnam-gu and 6 Other Organizations Jointly Conduct

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Autonomous delivery robot trials will begin in the heart of Seoul.

On the 8th, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that through the autonomous delivery robot trial project in the rapidly growing delivery sector, delivery robot services will start around COEX and Teheran-ro, expanding the points of contact for citizens to experience in their daily lives, enhancing awareness, and improving technology through the trials.

Seoul, together with Woowa Brothers (Baedal Minjok), LG Electronics, WTC Seoul, Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation, and Gangnam-gu, was selected for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s “AI·5G-based Large-scale Robot Convergence Model Demonstration Project” and will jointly proceed from June.

The “Autonomous Delivery Robot Demonstration” project will run for 18 months from June until November next year. Initially, from June, indoor delivery robot trials will be conducted from food and beverage stores in COEX to the office entrances of the Trade Center Building, and in 2023, outdoor delivery robot trials will be conducted from food and beverage stores on Teheran-ro to office lobbies on Teheran-ro. During this period, a total of 11 autonomous delivery robots of 3 different types will be deployed.

COEX and Teheran-ro, the demonstration sites, are large-scale office facilities and complex shopping malls with 33,000 resident employees and over 40 million annual visitors, making them ideal locations for robot trials. A total budget of 1.97 billion KRW over two years (970 million KRW national funds, 600 million KRW city funds, 400 million KRW district funds) will be invested in the project.

Seoul plans to secure demonstration data in real environments with high pedestrian traffic and strong on-site demand for delivery robots, and based on this, promote regulatory improvements such as establishing robot operation standards and personal information protection guidelines. In particular, to promote “allowing delivery robots to travel on sidewalks,” Seoul will actively communicate with central government agencies to establish safety standards for outdoor driving robots.

Through this demonstration project, participating companies are expected to identify improvements for indoor and outdoor delivery robot products and services, while public institutions such as the Seoul Metropolitan Government will efficiently build and operate an integrated 5G-based control system for indoor and outdoor environments and construct an indoor digital address map for robot services.

Hwang Bo-yeon, Director of Seoul’s Economic Policy Office, said, “Although various trials have been conducted to promote the spread and adoption of robots, this is the first time that trials are being conducted in large-scale spaces frequently visited by citizens, such as COEX and Teheran-ro.” He added, “Seoul will use this demonstration as an opportunity to expand public infrastructure for urban-type robot services in response to changes in urban life such as single-person households and telecommuting, and create a robot-friendly environment by establishing the Suseo Cluster to secure a leading position in the fiercely competitive global robot market.”

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