Seo Tae-won, a professor of Hanyang University School of Mechanical Engineering, developed a robot that cleans a building's exterior walls on a rope. Last year, Professor Seo's team developed a cleaning robot on a gondola, and this year, they introduced a robot that can be used without a gondola.

The skyscraper cleaning is a very difficult and life-threatening high-risk process for humans even though it has a large market estimated to be 11 trillion won. Professor Seo's team has been researching to provide unmanned and safer systems.

A robot on a gondola, Edelstro M1, presented last year by Professor Seo's team, received Korea's Top 10 technical machine award and the Red Dot Design Awards. I was displayed at the CES 2020 and the Dubai International Architectural Equipment Fair.

The newly developed self-driving model Edelstro M2 can be easily used without a gondola. Thus, just by fixing the rope to the top of the building as humans work, the robot moves on its own and cleans the buildings. In addition, it has the advantage of checking the cleaning status of contaminated areas in real-time through its vision sensors and AI algorithms.

"Edelstro M2 has high utility for middle or high-rise buildings and commercial buildings that existing models cannot clean because they can be operated without gondola," Professor Seo said. "We are currently conducting joint research with diverse institutions and are planning to release a new product after finishing the tests."

Edelstro M2 was revealed at the International Motion Control Industry Exhibition held at COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul, for three days starting from October 27. The concept image video is available on the robot design engineering laboratory's YouTube channel. The robot, announced under the brand Edelstro, represents the research team's will to manage treasure-like buildings of owners with the hands of craftsmen.