‘AI 눈’으로 장애물 피하고 감속… 상용화 전 안전규제 정비해야 [Original Article]

At noon on the 5th of last month, a white object measuring 73cm tall and weighing 66kg was moving around Magok-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul. Some citizens were surprised and quickly took out their phones to take pictures of the unidentified object. The object moving down the street amidst people's curious gazes was an outdoor autonomous driving robot called 'GAEMI'. The GAEMI was in the middle of a delivery. In November of last year, the Road Traffic Act and the Intelligent Robot Development and Distribution Promotion Act were revised to allow outdoor mobile robots that had received safety certification to use sidewalks. Previously, autonomous robots were only allowed to operate on private land such as apartment complexes, campgrounds, and golf courses starting in 2018. Now, as they are allowed to use 'public roads', they can now drive on sidewalks and alleys.

Recently, as outdoor autonomous robots for various purposes such as cleaning and patrolling are being developed in addition to delivery, it is expected that more robots will be on the road. How safe will the roads be when robots and people are mixed together? To get a sneak peek, our reporter accompanied Ant on his delivery trip that day.

'Ding-dong.' When a coffee order came in through the dedicated app, the GAEMI parked in front of the headquarters of ROBOTIS, the robot manufacturer that created the GAEMI, started delivering without hesitation. As the GAEMI was moving to its destination, it encountered a motorcycle illegally parked on the sidewalk and activated 'Stop'. It calculated the angle at which to avoid the motorcycle, backed up slightly, and smoothly turned diagonally to pass next to the motorcycle.

After that, it recognized people walking a few meters across and moved to one side in advance. Occasionally, when people taking pictures of the robot continued to block its path, the ant would emit a guidance sound saying, "I'm delivering the goods. I'll pass carefully."

Sometimes, the ant would stop even when there were no obstacles. When it looked around, there was a parking lot entrance on the left. It had identified the location information of specific terrain and objects such as parking lot entrances and exits and ramps through on-site inspection, so it stopped to check if a car was coming out in advance. After confirming that there were no cars, the ant stopped exactly in front of the café where the delivery request came in and sent an 'arrival' notification. A café employee came out and opened the ant's body and filled it with coffee to be delivered. The drawer located in the body containing the coffee was electronically locked so that only customers could open it. There seemed to be no concern that the contents would spill while driving.

This autonomous robot freely adjusted its speed depending on the situation, such as running at a speed of about 8 km/h for quick delivery on a road with few people, and slowing down to a normal walking pace when there were many people. According to the police, the average speed of recently developed autonomous robots is about 4-5 km/h, similar to that of pedestrians. Lee Seo-yeon (39), who was out with her 3-year-old son that day and watched the ant up close, said, “The robot moves slowly, so it doesn’t seem that dangerous for children,” adding, “I just wonder if it can safely cross a crosswalk with cars.”

In fact, on this day, the GAEMI crossed a crosswalk without a traffic light several times. Before crossing, it stopped to check the road conditions, and started crossing if there were no oncoming cars. To compensate for the GAEMI's small height, a flag was placed on the body of the robot so that drivers driving could see the robot and slow down.

In order for a robot to obtain outdoor driving qualification, it must pass the Korea Robot Industry Advancement Institute's operational safety certification examination. A total of 16 items are evaluated, including crosswalk passage, speed control, obstacle detection and avoidance driving, emergency stop function, and compliance with the operating area. In addition, there are restrictions such as a maximum speed of 15 km/h and a maximum weight of 500 kg including the load. The average maximum weight of the six robots that have passed the examination, including the GAEMI, is approximately 94 kg.

Self-driving robots can detect not only traffic lights but also obstacles thanks to cameras, radar, and lidar. First, using cameras, they can detect not only the presence of obstacles but also the type of obstacle and the distance to the obstacle. They have ultrasonic sensors so they can avoid transparent glass without any problems. Depending on the situation, such as when it rains, they even use radar and lidar. Lidar is a technology that obtains distance information by shooting a laser and measuring the time it takes for it to reflect off an object and return. The sensitivity for avoiding obstacles can also be adjusted depending on the location, so in wide-open areas like golf courses, the sensitivity can be lowered compared to urban areas to increase speed.

The scenes seen through the robot's lenses are transmitted to the control room in real time, so that humans can remotely control the robot in case of an emergency. It is a double safety net that primarily uses artificial intelligence (AI) to avoid obstacles, while additionally allowing humans to comprehensively manage the situation. In the case of another robot manufacturer, Newbility, when an accident occurs, the control center immediately turns on the microphone attached to the robot and informs the victim of the relevant information according to the manual. After that, the response team goes to the scene, moves the robot, and proceeds with repairs. This company was the first in Korea to receive safety certification for mobile robots. A police official said, “We started the ‘Robot Sidewalk’ demonstration special project in Magok and Sangam, Seoul, Suwon, Gyeonggi, and Busan in 2019,” and “It seems that the minimum level of safety is being proven as there have been no accidents yet.” GAEMI, which has carried out more than 2,400 deliveries from May to early July this year, has not had any accidents yet. However, as outdoor mobile robots become commercialized in the future, new problems such as unlicensed robot operation may arise, so the government has begun to establish additional laws and systems.