The introduction of intelligent robots into the manual production process of traditional foods such as kimchi and traditional sauces is expected to improve process efficiency in related industries.

The Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI, President Shin Hee-dong) announced on the 14th that it has developed a robot task intelligence recognition system technology for automating the process of traditional food production (kimchi, traditional sauces) that mainly involves manual labor.

Kimchi, a representative K-food, has irregular characteristics and is easily torn, so gripper technology to directly hold seasoned kimchi has been absent, and as a result, the process of packaging dried kimchi for sale has shown limitations in that it mostly relies on manual labor.

In addition, in the case of traditional sauces such as gochujang, most of the combined packaging process was difficult to automate because the intelligent gripper technology that recognizes products by specifications and packages them together was not secured.

Dr. Kim Young-wook's team at the KETI Intelligent Robotics Research Center has developed a dedicated gripper that can safely and stably grip two-section kimchi, and is currently conducting experiments in a test bed before applying it to the actual process of a demanding company. The traditional soy sauce packaging technology will be applied to the actual process of Sajosanup Co., Ltd., a demanding company, after completing verification in the test bed.

Specifically, the research team developed a deep learning model that recognizes the location and area of kimchi, a flexible gripper tip, and an internal structure that is easy to clean so that it can pick up irregularly shaped kimchi. We designed a gripper technology optimized for the characteristics of food, and developed a technology to pick up traditional seasonings by recognizing their specifications and areas.

According to Shin Jun-ho, the head researcher in charge of this research project, the application of technology can stably secure the optimal filling rate for kimchi packaging compared to the existing manual process, and productivity of traditional sauces is also expected to increase due to automation of the process.

This study was conducted as a project called 'Development of a 5G MEC Framework for Improving Food Factory Productivity and Automating/Optimizing Flexible Packaging' among the ICT Convergence Industry Innovation Technology Development Project of the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute of Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation (IITP).

KETI Intelligent Robotics Research Center Director Hwang Jeong-hoon said, “KETI is researching process automation in a wide range of fields, including not only food production processes but also manufacturing, by utilizing robots and artificial intelligence technologies,” and “As a key domestic research institute in the field of artificial intelligence-based robots, we will do our best to commercialize robot technology and support domestic companies’ entry into the global market.”