If you’ve ever wondered where Samsung goes after building folding smartphones and developing the K9 Thunder 155mm self-propelled howitzer (look it up), the answer is obviously: humanoid robots. After all, everyone else is doing it, and the South Korean company isn’t one to let a trend slip by.
How soon we’ll see something that looks and walks in a vaguely human manner is uncertain. Still, the head of the company’s Future Robotics Division, Oh Jun-ho, speaking at this year’s International Robot Symposium, reckons we’ll “be able to see it soon.”
Please don’t name it Bixby, Samsung
There are several challenges for Samsung to overcome, according to Oh, starting at the research level. The company is actively looking into actuators, software, and hand development, the latter being one of the most difficult parts of a humanoid robot to create. They’re easy to fake, but if you’re looking for an army of droids to assemble your products, decent digit control is a must.
The company also needs to “secure core technologies such as sensors and cameras needed for humanoids and understand what role we should play in the market” before it can “capture a significant share of the global market,” said Oh. The latter is Samsung’s stated aim for creating a humanoid droid. But then, that’s the tech maker’s stated aim for every product it develops and releases.
Samsung will face serious headwinds in its development, since everyone from Boston Dynamics to Tesla to Xiaomi has a head start. Chinese companies, in particular, are driving hard into this sector. Companies like Unitree have several retail models already on the market, opting to develop and release rather than push for one hyper-skilled product. Heck, you can even 3D-print much of an open-source robot and build it yourself, though it’ll cost more than a basic ‘bot that you could own today for the price of a smartphone.
