Yuilrobotics expands AI-integrated 'dark factory' solutions

Yuilrobotics, a total robot automation solutions provider, is expanding its business into "dark factory" operations — fully autonomous, unmanned manufacturing — by integrating AI into its industrial robots and automation systems, moving beyond conventional smart factory offerings.

The company said Wednesday it is pushing to broaden the application of dark factory solutions built on its smart factory platform, Link Factory.

Link Factory brings together a supervisory control and data acquisition system for production facility monitoring, a manufacturing execution system, a robot control system, a quality management system and a warehouse management system, along with a digital twin platform called Link METAVERSE and an AI-based predictive maintenance system called Link AI.

Drawing on that foundation, Yuilrobotics is expanding its smart factory business by connecting production, logistics and quality data from the factory floor and integrating control of robots and production equipment. The company plans to further advance its solutions toward a full dark factory model, in which AI perceives and assesses conditions on the factory floor and autonomously directs robots and equipment.

Related deployment projects are continuing. Yuilrobotics completed a roughly four-year K-Smart Lighthouse Factory upgrade project — running from 2022 through May this year — covering the injection molding and assembly processes of auto parts manufacturer Sambo A&T.

Since June, the company has been building out logistics automation for a new factory operated by a manufacturer of small electric motors for vehicles. The contract is valued at about 5.7 billion won ($4.21 million), including value-added tax, with completion scheduled by March next year.

Yuilrobotics is also extending its technology reach beyond smart factories into physical AI, including humanoid robots. A consortium led by the company, with SK On as a key partner, was recently selected by the government to carry out a detailed task under a state-funded project to develop swappable standard battery technology for humanoid robots. The consortium plans to develop high-output all-solid-state cells and packs, a battery management system and hot-swap technology for use in actual robots.

"The manufacturing paradigm is shifting beyond smart factories toward autonomous, unmanned production powered by AI," a Yuilrobotics official said. "A data, communications and control framework that takes in real-time data from different robots and production equipment and feeds AI-driven decisions back to the machines must all work together. We will continue expanding our smart factory business while evolving our systems into an autonomous manufacturing platform that unifies robots, AI and communications."