[Courtesy of Woowa Brothers]
SEOUL -- Chef robots and autonomous serving robots will provide convenience for both customers and store owners in a government project to demonstrate smart stores and nurture future growth engines that would bring innovative changes to South Korea's shopping and dining culture.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said in a statement that 20 shopping districts were selected across South Korea to demonstrate smart store technologies such as chef robots and serving robots, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and internet of things (IoT).
Among them, five districts will become a complex of testbeds for chef and serving robots as well as smart mirrors using AR and VR technology. Chef robots will help human colleagues in the kitchen of restaurants while serving robots will navigate around stores to deliver food to customers. Smart mirrors are interactive digital kiosks that display menus or the layout of stores to help customers.
The ministry said that 15 districts would adopt smart order systems using mobile devices. Customers can use smartphone apps to make reservations and transactions. Smart shelves embedded with IoT technology will display the weight and price of products and help store owners manage inventory.
South Korea's service industry started introducing various service robots. Woowa Brothers, the operator of the country's favorite food delivery app, has forged a partnership with LG Electronics to develop a robot solution specialized for restaurants.
The delivery company has tested service robots capable of using elevators to navigate inside a building to deliver coffee and drinks for customers as well as autonomous waiter robots at restaurants through a rental program..
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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