Daewooo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering has revealed its latest worker — the world's first artificial intelligence robot for hot metal work.
Called Goknuri, DSME said the machine is there to improve the working environment of its human co-workers and increases precision and productivity.
The South Korean shipbuilder added that the robot can be overseen by low-skilled staff after two or three days of training, thanks to the use of big data.
"The newly developed robot Goknuri contributes to maintaining high quality by standardising work contents while storing and utilising the know-how and performance of existing workers as data," DSME said.
The company added that the accumulated data can also be used for the construction of other ships using artificial intelligence technology in the future.
Helping the humans
Goknuri's human colleagues benefit through less exposure to noise and muscular wear and tear.
The robot, of course, does not need pay or time off but, with AI involved, who's to say whether it will seek union representation in the future?
DSME said: "Ships have complex curved surfaces at the front and rear of the hull to improve operational performance. In order to make a solid steel plate with a maximum thickness of 70mm into a curved surface, cold working and hot working processes are performed."
In cold working, the plate is curved using a compression roller or press at room temperature. In hot working, the steel is heated to a temperature of about 800C and then rapidly cooled.
Consistent quality tricky to achieve
"Hot working requires little force to produce curved surfaces compared to cold working, but it is difficult to uniformly heat the steel plate, so there is difficulty in having to rely mainly on the experience of a skilled high-tech person in order to maintain consistent quality," DSME said.
The shipbuilder started to develop the robotic system three years ago because of the high physical burden that such work places on employees, who have to hold a fixed posture for a long time in a hot and noisy environment.
An internal demonstration of Goknuri was carried out in September and now the robot is at work at DSME’s Okpo-based shipyard.
