The South Korean Ministry of Information and Communication has allocated $34 billion USD towards the development of autonomous and remote controlled robots for military and policing purposes. The viability of this project will be assessed later in the week by their Center for Intelligent Robots, and if deemed worthwhile development will begin next year with products emerging in the 2010 decade..

Each class of machines would be designed specifically for one purpose or another. Security enforcing robots will able able to chase and apprehend criminals and are looked upon as optimal candidates for night shifts. Combat robots will have a dog or horse-like appearance and move either on wheels or have a hexapodal leg configuration.

These new robots will be different from previous models in that only computations regulating movement will be processed locally. All other instructions will be relayed via an internet connection.

Robots costing $1-2,000 USD will launch in South Korea this October for commercial applications, like house cleaning and child care. These are ten times cheaper than similar machines recently introduced in Japan.

Read the article. (South Korea Times)