According to data released by Rainbow Robotics, there is a growing demand for robots that can be operated on battlefields, disaster areas, and urban areas. Since August 2022, Hyundai Rotem and Rainbow Robotics have cooperated and exchanged technology in defense robots that combine unmanned weapons systems and advanced robot technologies.
Unlike their wheeled or tracked brothers, four-legged robots can move through extreme terrain including rocky boulders and narrow mountain trails. In cases of emergency, they can move faster in severe terrain conditions to carry heavy cargo.
Rainbow Robotics has showcased the prototype for the quadruped robot "RBQ-3" at the "Korea Police World Expo 2023," a police and security industry exhibition held in the western port city of Incheon between October 18 and 21. The robot weighing about 25 kilograms (55 pounds) can carry items weighing three to five kilograms. Without disclosing a specific date, the robot platform operator said its RBQ series will be commercialized in 2024.
The multi-legged solution can be used to detect landmines at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. "We have secured technology to supply a robot with an arm installed with landmine detection function," a Rainbow Robotics official told Aju Korea Daily on condition of anonymity. He added: "If necessary, we can also supply a large number of quadrupedal robots for landmine detection missions."
Since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953, some two million landmines have been planted on both sides of the inter-Korean border where armed clashes and shooting have raised tensions sporadically across entrenched concrete guard posts and iron fences stretching about 250 km (160 miles) from the east to the west.
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