In order to distribute agricultural robots to the fields, based on the review of Japanese trends, three preliminary tasks and implications for the development of agricultural robots in Korea are derived as followings. The first result is that farmers are small-scale, agricultural robot is necessary to standardize through the public-private partnerships and reduce the supply price through the utilization of existing technologies and components. Secondly, the car-based robots are GPS-based system, and it is necessary to construct a nation-wide regional base stations that can trensmit the GPS correction signals free of charge in real time. Third, additional research is needed to cope with the unexpected situation in the fields, such as obstacle avoidance technology, robot safety evaluation technology, and safety standard development. In addition, although agricultural robots are being developed in Korea, a step-by-step approach is necessary for solving the above-mentioned pre-requisites for field distribution. In the first stage, it is necessary to supply an autonomous straight guidance system that assists the worker. The second stage is the spread of cooperation system between human and robot. The third stage is a complete robot system, in which the robot works on its own. Therefore, the supply of agricultural robots needs to be approached sequentially.

• 이충근 | Choung-Keun Lee
• 홍영기 | Young-Ki Hong Corresponding author