Anyang puts six AI patrol robots into its central market from November

The city of Anyang, south of Seoul, said on Oct 21 that it will put six autonomous patrol robots into Anyang Jungang Market from November after being selected for the 2026 physical-AI robot demonstration programme run by the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA), the Korean trade daily Robot Newspaper (irobotnews) reported; MEKAWIRE has not seen the city's own release.

According to the report, the robots will patrol at night when shops are closed, watch for smoke, flames and abnormal heat, flag goods blocking fire lanes to the merchants' association and help search for missing persons, with alerts monitored around the clock by the city's smart-city centre and passed to police and fire services.

The project costs KRW 625m in total, made up of KRW 312.5m from the national budget, KRW 200m from the city and KRW 112.5m from private participants. The city was selected in July and signed an agreement with KIRIA in September; the robots are being finished this month, field tests run to December and operation and upgrades follow from January 2027 to December 2029.

The robot maker was not named. MEKAWIRE context: Korea's patrol-robot field includes Neubility, Intellivix, Maum AI and Robotis AI, as MEKAWIRE's Oct 19 explainer set out, and Suprema added face-recognition search to Neubility patrol robots on Oct 20.