South Korea's "revised" Intelligent Robot Act comes into full effect: granting pedestrian identity to pass on the sidewalk

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen OC_Formula for the clue delivery! CTOnews.com, November 24 (Xinhua)-- South Korea's Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources and the Police Agency jointly announced that with the revision of the Intelligent Robot Law (revised on May 23, 2016 and implemented on November 23, 2017) and the Road Traffic Law (revised on April 23, 2018 and October 23, 2019), outdoor mobile robots have been certified for driving safety, granted pedestrian identity and allowed to pass on the sidewalk.

The revised Intelligent Robots Act, which came into effect on November 17, allows new services such as delivery and delivery to be carried out using outdoor mobile robots, but still requires an operator to walk next to them.

It is understood that such robots need to comply with some strict physical restrictions, weighing less than 500 kilograms and a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour. In order to obtain the job safety certification, the outdoor robot must be verified by the operation safety certification organization designated by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources to verify the safety of 16 test items such as working area, crosswalk passing and so on.

Outdoor robots must abide by road traffic regulations, such as banning traffic violations and jaywalking, and operators will be fined 30,000 won if they break the rules. (CTOnews.com Note: currently about Rmb165).