Donation ceremony held at Suwon administrative welfare center, Hwaryeongjeon shrine
Devices to be distributed to regional heritage care centers nationwide
Hyundai Motor Company said Wednesday it has donated 10 units of its industrial wearable robot, the X-ble Shoulder, to the Cultural Heritage Administration to support the agency's heritage care project.
Hyundai Motor held a donation ceremony for the X-ble Shoulder on Tuesday at the Haenggung-dong administrative welfare center and Hwaryeongjeon, a state-designated historic site in Paldal-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. Officials attending included Lee Gil-bae, director general of the heritage policy bureau at the Cultural Heritage Administration, and Jeon Hyun-chul, head of Hyundai Motor's business development and sustainability management office.
The donation is part of Hyundai Motor's social contribution efforts to support the heritage care project run by the Cultural Heritage Administration.
Under the project, the Cultural Heritage Administration works with regional heritage care centers and their workers to regularly inspect state-designated heritage sites and make prompt repairs when minor damage is found, keeping the sites in good condition.
The X-ble Shoulder, developed in-house by Hyundai Motor and Kia Robotics Lab, is an unpowered wearable robot designed to support shoulder muscles. It reduces the strain on shoulder joints by up to 60 percent, can be used continuously without a battery, and weighs about 1.9 kilograms despite its high strength, thanks to automotive-grade materials. The robot is expected to help ease shoulder fatigue and improve safety for workers on heritage care projects.
The donated units will be distributed to regional heritage care centers in Gyeonggi Province, North Chungcheong Province, northern North Gyeongsang Province, and the western South Jeolla Province-Gwangju region, where workers will wear them while carrying out heritage management work.
Hyundai Motor plans to provide training for users at the group level after the donation and continue improving the product based on feedback on its effectiveness and user satisfaction.
"We will continue our support to ensure that our precious cultural heritage is passed down intact to future generations," a Hyundai Motor official said.
Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor has been carrying out a range of activities at home and abroad under "Hyundai Continue," a global creating-shared-value initiative covering the environment, mobility and future generations that the company launched in January 2022 as part of its sustainability management efforts.
In May, Hyundai Motor signed an MOU with the Korea Forest Service and tree-planting social venture Tree Planet at the National Institute of Forest Science in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, to support forest damage recovery. Then in July, together with Kia, it donated two electric patrol vehicles to support safety and security activities for the Korean community in Chile, as part of its broader efforts to fulfill corporate social responsibility across various fields.
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