LG Innotek, TDK join forces to give robots better vision, sense of touch
For the partnership, LG Innotek is contributing its modularization and digital signal processing technology, and Japan-based TDK is doing the same with its tactile sensing technology.
Min Jong, the LG Innotek chief technology officer (CTO), right, and TDK CTO Shuichi Hashiyama pose for a photo at a signing ceremony for a memorandum of understanding on cooperation to develop physical AI solutions at LG Innotek's headquarters in Gangseo District, western Seoul.
LG INNOTEK
LG Innotek will work with Japanese electronics components maker TDK to develop next-generation sensing technologies, including a tactile “skin” sensor, in the field of physical AI.
The partnership centers on combining TDK’s motion, positioning and audio sensors with LG Innotek’s vision-sensing modules to make robots better at recognizing and reacting to their surroundings.
Under the partnership, LG Innotek and TDK are developing a system to stabilize a robot’s vision, and the two plan to unveil a module in 2027. A robot’s movement shakes its camera, which causes its vision to blur. By employing TDK’s inertial measurement unit, a sensor that tracks motion in real time, the system will sense exactly how a robot’s movement will affect the camera and correct its vision accordingly. The result is the robot’s steadier, more accurate recognition of its surroundings even while in motion.
LG Innotek and TDK are also building a tactile sensing module that helps a robot feel, with a target completion date of 2027. Mounted on a robot’s hand, arms, torso or another section, the component functions like human skin and allows the robot to sense contact and pressure.
The tactile module is considered a high-value but difficult component to build, as it requires precision engineering and must be ultrathin, flexible and highly sensitive. Along with vision sensing, the component is increasingly seen as one of the core building blocks of robotics.
LG Innotek is contributing its modularization and digital signal processing technology while TDK brings tactile sensing technology that it has refined across industries, such as consumer and automotive electronics.
“Multisensing is expected to draw growing attention in robotics,” said Moon Hyuk-soo, the CEO of LG Innotek, in a statement. “LG Innotek will lead the ecosystem for core robotic components through its cooperation with TDK’s diverse sensor portfolio, and [we] will also continue partnering with a range of companies to advance the core technologies applied to robots’ eyes and hands and to accelerate [our] push to secure an early lead in the physical AI market.”
The AI sensor market is expected to grow 43.61 percent per year from $4.77 billion in 2024 to $178 billion in 2034, according to market tracker Precedence Research.
TDK has invested heavily in its sensor business over the past two decades and holds a broad sensor portfolio spanning inertial, positioning, pressure and temperature sensors.
BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]
