An industrial four-legged robot that freely climbs walls and ceilings and a humanoid (human-shaped robot) that walks on two legs through the streets of Gangnam are taking the stage for commercialization and drawing attention.
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) said on the 30th that domestic robot startups based on research achievements from the campus are driving new innovation at shipyards and in urban field sites. Deeden Robotics and Eurobotics are at the center of it.
Deeden Robotics is a robot-focused startup jointly founded in March last year by four members from the lab of Professor Park Hae-won in the KAIST Department of Mechanical Engineering. It is collaborating with major domestic shipyards, including Samsung Heavy Industries, HD Hyundai Samho, Hanwha Ocean, and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, to develop on-site customized robots.
Its flagship product, "DIDEN 30," is a quadruped robot that has successfully completed tests to step over densely installed steel reinforcements (longitudinals) set up as structures at shipbuilding sites, proving its potential for on-site application. It is currently conducting research to enhance functions so it can stably pass through narrow entrances inside ships, and from the second half of 2026 it is pushing performance improvements so it can be deployed for actual tasks such as welding, inspection, and painting.
Recently, through joint development with Samsung Heavy Industries, it successfully carried out tasks from overcoming longitudes and performing "surmounting" tests to welding on blocks under construction. This is an important achievement that means Deeden Robotics' technology has been verified not just at the laboratory level but in real industrial settings.
Eurobotics is an autonomous-walking startup jointly founded by three researchers from the lab of Professor Myung Hyun in the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering. It is pushing commercialization of robots that walk autonomously at indoor and outdoor industrial sites. In a recently released video, a humanoid equipped with control technology developed by Eurobotics walked naturally through the crowds in downtown Gangnam, drawing attention. It plans to announce the commercialization of world-class humanoid walking technology at the International Conference on Humanoid Robots "Humanoids 2025," to be held on Oct. 1.
At the core is the "blind walking controller" technology. Eurobotics said that, unlike other robots, it decides walking based only on internal information without external sensors such as LiDAR, which observes the distance and shape of surrounding objects by firing cameras or lasers, enabling stable walking regardless of day or night or weather. Even without precise terrain modeling, the robot "imagines" the terrain on its own to walk, demonstrating robust performance with the same controller across various environments such as sidewalks, downhill slopes, and stairs.
The technology began with the 2023 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) quadruped competition, where a team from Professor Myung's lab took first place, beating the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by a large margin, proving its world-class capabilities. Eurobotics CEO Yoo Byung-ho led the team at the time, and co-chief technology officers (CTO) Oh Min-ho and Lee Dong-gyu directly participated in developing the core autonomous walking technology. Building on that, they continued additional development tailored to humanoid environments and entered the commercialization stage.
KAIST President Lee Kwang-hyung said, "This achievement is a representative example showing that KAIST's fundamental technologies are rapidly spreading to industrial sites through startups," and added, "KAIST will continue to actively support innovative entrepreneurship based on challenging research to lead the global robotics industry."