LAS VEGAS -- After unveiling its new vision of expanding a human reach to robotics and metaverse, Hyundai Motor opened its CES booth filled with robots, not cars, to present the future of mobility.

The exhibition taking place at the tech show featured three Spots, a quadruped robot, dancing in sync to a BTS song titled “Ioniq: I’m on it.”

L7, a micro-mobility concept based on a platform that combines 4 large PnD modules, followed Spot’s lead by demonstrating how it can crabwalk, with wheels that can rotate 360 degrees being able to move in parallel. PnD module is a single-wheel robotics platform that can be used to move around things of diverse sizes autonomously with lidar and camera sensors.

“The L7 with a 12-inch PnD module can run not only indoors but also on bumpy roads at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour,” described Hyun Dong-jin, vice president and head of Hyundai Motor Group Robotics Lab.

Hyundai also demonstrated a personal mobility concept for individualized public transportation that uses PnD module.

Personal mobility looked like a four-wheeled capsule in which only one person can get in to enable private transportation.

MobED, a multi-freedom mobile platform, showed how despite being wheeled, it can climb up and down stairs without disturbing the body.

It even turned 360 degrees but with one of the wheels lifted like a figure skater.

“MobED is a concept of a ‘Wheeled-Legged’ robot which means that its wheels act as its leg allowing to move faster than Spot that only has legs, but at the same time, drive more stably in rough road conditions”, explained Hyun.

Hyundai Motor expects these new products to be commercialized in the next two years to meet demands from the delivery and service sectors.

It is also considering having a ‘Software Development Kit’ as an option for customers that buy Spot, PnD module and MobED to customize the mobility to customer’s needs.

On the sidelines of the robotics demonstration, Atlas, the world’s most dynamic humanoid robot made by Boston Dynamics, logistics mobility and service mobility were exhibited.

Logistics mobility is a concept of storage put on top of 4 PnD modules to enable autonomous mobility for short distances.

Logistics mobility with a Spot can be used to deliver goods from one location to another, according to the company.

Service mobility is about a personal secretary that can be used in hotels, at work, or at home.

Hyundai also offered a metaverse experience zone that allowed visitors to create their own avatars to inhibit in the virtual world.

In the virtual space, the newly created avatar is able to take a picture with Spot and can be physically printed out to share Hyundai’s vision of humans freely moving between the virtual and the physical worlds.

By Hong Yoo, Korea Herald correspondent 
(yoohong@heraldcorp.com)