LG Electronics hires UCLA professor for logistic robots

Seoul-based LG Electronics announced Monday that it is working with Korean American robot engineer Dennis Hong to develop a robotics solution for the logistics sector.

The collaboration between LG Electronics’ Advanced Robotics Lab and Hong, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, is aimed at promoting “advances in robotics technology to a wider audience” so that products can be shipped from warehouses to customers more efficiently.

The news comes as Korea’s service robot ecosystem is burgeoning as 5G network infrastructure is being built across the nation, a key to shortening response time for smoother autonomous robot operations.

LG’s Advanced Robotics Lab, created in 2017, has been behind the family of CLOi service robots dedicated to automated delivery, food serving, sterilization, hospitality and more. The in-house body introduced four-wheel robots for indoor and outdoor operations in 2021.

To expand its footprint in the sector, LG Electronics has also invested in robotics firms, such as Korea-based automation solutions firm Robostar with a 33 percent stake. The company also invested in US-based startup Bossa Nova Robotics in 2018, but sold nearly all its stakes in the company in the third quarter of 2021.

Hong’s addition to LG Electronics is the latest in the company’s robotics push, following a collaboration with Kim Sang-bae, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, via LG’s Boston Robotics Lab.

Hong is a founding director of UCLA’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory. With an expertise in robot locomotion and manipulation, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, Hong has worked with South Korean robotics service providers including Woowa Brothers and KT.

(consnow@heraldcorp.com)