LG Electronics supplies autonomous robots to malls in Japan

LG Electronics said Sunday it has supplied autonomous robots to two locations of shopping mall chain Aeon in Japan.

The multipurpose customer service robots, branded as the LG CLOi GuideBot, have recently begun operating in Aeon malls in Toki, a suburb of Nagoya, and Narita, 60 kilometers east of Tokyo, according to the South Korean tech giant, without specifying dates.

The robots feature two 27-inch flat-panel displays with touch-screen functions at the front and the rear side. They can also communicate with pedestrians in Japanese, English and Chinese, based on natural language processing technology.

According to LG, the artificial intelligence-powered system will allow the robots to navigate complex environments in crowded retail settings, moving around obstacles and escalator entrances and exits.

The robots can also be remotely monitored in real time by an operator thanks to its cloud platform.

This comes as the latest LG Electronics' move to expand its autonomous robot footprint in Japan, with a wide-ranging portfolio that includes customer service robots, self-driving robots that transport food in restaurants and disinfection robots in hospitals.