'Clear the table' — South Korea's humanoid robot brain is here

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) said Wednesday it will hold the "ETRI Physical AI Playground" technology showcase Thursday at Kintex in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, unveiling 10 key research achievements in humanoid robots, autonomous driving and robot intelligence.

Physical AI is a next-generation technology that, unlike conventional AI systems that generate text and images, perceives real-world environments and acts on its own judgment. Its core idea is to equip robots with eyes, a brain and limbs so they can move autonomously in the physical world.

As global competition for dominance in physical AI intensifies, "robot intelligence" — the ability to understand surrounding conditions and decide on actions — is emerging as the decisive competitive edge, surpassing raw hardware performance.

In response to this trend, ETRI has designated robot intelligence as a priority research direction in the AI robotics field and is working to secure the underlying technologies.

Among the technologies to be unveiled, the standout achievement is the Robot Foundation Model (RFM), which serves as the brain of a humanoid robot.

A key feature is the separation of two functions: understanding human instructions and planning tasks on one side, and real-time control of the robot's movements on the other. The system is designed so the robot can operate stably even when communication is delayed.

Also on display is a technology that translates natural-language commands into physical actions. When given an instruction such as "clear the table," the robot independently plans the necessary steps and adjusts the sequence of tasks if conditions around it change.

A technology that runs robot AI on a palm-sized compact computer will also be presented.

ETRI's Robot Learning Data Hub, known as ROJI-Hub, has accumulated more than 1.4 million video recordings of task executions covering 140,000 robot tasks, including stacking cups and moving objects.

It functions as a kind of "robot learning library," allowing robots to search for and draw on the data they need when learning new tasks.

A technology to enhance a robot's sense of touch will also be introduced. Using electronic skin, it enables a robot hand to detect the contact state of objects and handle them with precision.

The showcase will also feature an autonomous driving AI capable of operating in severe weather, as well as drone technology designed to search for missing persons in mountainous terrain.

The autonomous driving AI integrates data from multiple sensors to navigate even when visibility is poor due to rain, snow or fog, or when road conditions are irregular.

The autonomous search technology uses multiple drones that fly through forest obstacles, detect missing persons and render the search area as a three-dimensional map.

A technology for easily collecting demonstration data needed for robot training will also be showcased. It gathers data from multiple cameras and robot joint sensors 30 times per second and synchronizes them within a time error of 25 milliseconds, enabling the construction of precise training datasets.

Also to be unveiled are a control AI for an ultra-lightweight wearable suit that predicts the wearer's movements to assist with walking, and a humanoid interaction technology that allows robots to gesture and nod in response to human speech.

"Physical AI is the starting point of a new wave of technological innovation — one where artificial intelligence moves beyond the digital realm to understand and act directly in the real world," said Yoo Won-pil, director of ETRI's Physical AI Research Institute. "We will expand industry-academia-research collaboration to strengthen South Korea's global competitiveness in physical AI."