Robolution, Dongwon F&B Develop AI Robots to Detect Foreign Substances in Food

Robolution and Dongwon F&B are developing AI humanoid robots to sort foreign substances in tuna. Robolution, a robot specialist company, announced it has been selected with Dongwon F&B for the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement's "2026 Humanoid Robot Demonstration Support Project." The project, with a total budget of 1 billion KRW, will be carried out over six months to prepare for the on-site implementation of humanoid robots.

The goal of this project is to develop an AI humanoid behavior model that identifies and removes irregular foreign substances such as fine bones, blood spots, and skins from raw tuna, and to demonstrate its effectiveness in the tuna pouch production process at Dongwon F&B's Changwon factory. The two companies plan to implement artificial intelligence technology in actual production environments.

Technically, the project will utilize Neuromecha's humanoid platforms, 'NAMI' and 'EIR,' to develop food-specific behavioral intelligence by combining video imitation learning, where robots learn from skilled human movements, with remote control data. To cope with harsh food manufacturing environments such as humidity, cleaning, and salinity, hardware improvements including waterproof/dustproof functions and anti-corrosion materials will be pursued. Precision identification of foreign matter will be achieved by applying vision AI, sensors, and soft gripper technology, minimizing damage to the raw materials.

This project aims to verify the applicability, economic feasibility, and safety of collaboration with workers when applying humanoid robots to irregular food processing lines. It is expected to be a landmark case for introducing humanoid robots into food processing, going beyond typical repetitive tasks.