S. Korea to employ robots to protect oil storage facility

By Lee Joon-seung

SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will employ robots and sensor systems to protect a vast oil storage facility from intruders and fires, the government said Tuesday.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said the 8.04 billion won (US$6.52 million)
project is intended to help guard the 957,000 square meter Seosan oil facility
operated by state-run Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC).
KNOC's Seosan facility, located 100km south of Seoul, was built in 2005 and can
hold up to 14.6 million barrels of crude oil. It is the largest above-land
facility in the country and is capable of meeting the country's crude oil needs
for 11 days.
The ministry said two static and three mobile robots will be used in conjunction
with 30 sensor arrays to keep track of all human and automobile traffic entering
the compound all year round and to quickly detect oil leaks or fires.
"Seosan will act as the world's first operational testbed employing robots to
safeguard oil storage facilities," said a ministry official.
He added that if the testbed satisfies requirements, South Korea will be in a
good position to export the robot-sensor system abroad.
"Following the 9/11 terror attacks there has been a surge in demand for more
protection for vital infrastructure facilities like oil bunkers," he said.
The official pointed out that while the global market for observation and guard
robots stood at just $3.6 billion in 2008, it is expected to grow to $13.3
billion by 2012.
Samsung Techwin Co., a local manufacturer of defense-related products and
semiconductor systems, will set up the comprehensive observation and guard system
by February 2010 with full fledged operations to begin in July.
yonngong@yna.co.kr
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