AI patrol robots at Deoksugung and Seooreung — wheels or legs, until November 2026

Where the night-watch patrols of the Joseon capital once walked, a robot now takes its turn. In a press release of 21 August 2026 the Korea Heritage Service's Royal Palaces and Tombs Center announced field trials of artificial-intelligence patrol robots at Deoksugung Palace and the Seooreung royal tombs in Goyang. The point is not adoption but comparison: a robot that runs on wheels and one that walks on two legs are being placed on different kinds of ground, and data on which type suits palaces and royal tombs will be gathered until November.

Why different robots for Deoksugung and Seooreung

The Center says the terrain decided the robots' legs. Deoksugung, where the paths between the halls are mostly level, gets a robot that rolls on four wheels; Seooreung, with grass slopes climbing to the burial mounds and ramps between them, gets one that walks. This is not one specification split between two sites: from the outset two different modes of movement are placed in two different environments so that driving performance, obstacle handling and surveillance and detection can be compared.

What the robots detect, and what they do about it

The press release names three things to detect: fire, intruders, and the emergency of a visitor collapsing. What sets this apart from CCTV is that detection is not the end of it — the robot is linked to the control room and also handles on-the-spot guidance and warning broadcasts.

• LiDAR — a sensor that maps the surrounding space and obstacles with laser light. It is what lets the robot move between halls, stone figures and trees without collisions.
• Vision AI — AI analysis of the camera feed that identifies objects, behaviour and abnormal situations, and works out the robot's own position and a drivable route.
• Thermal camera — picks up temperature changes invisible to the eye, catching the early signs of fire.
• Control-room link — when something is detected, the robot works with the control room to put out guidance and warning broadcasts.

What palaces and royal tombs look like to a robot

Palaces and Joseon royal tombs have only one thing in common: they are large outdoor heritage sites. The Korea Heritage Service explains that with many kinds of heritage and structures scattered across wide grounds, and narrow winding paths, ramps, unpaved stretches and trees all mixed together, each site demands different driving performance and obstacle handling. That is why the emphasis is less on confirming an individual robot's performance than on testing which type fits which site.

What the Changdeokgung 'Sullabot' pilot showed

This trial did not come out of nowhere. From February 2026 the Center ran one patrol robot at Changdeokgung on its own budget, and on the strength of that it was selected for the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' demonstration project and moved on to this follow-up. The details of the Changdeokgung robot below come not from the official press release but from news coverage of a demonstration held in front of the Yeonghwadang pavilion in Changdeokgung's rear garden on 20 February 2026.

• Name — 'Sullabot', reported to be named after the sulla, the night patrols of the Joseon capital.
• Maker — Dogu Gonggan Co., introduced at the demonstration as a product built entirely with domestic technology.
• Specification — 115.3 cm tall, 120 kg, a travelling speed of 0.7 m per second, and able to climb slopes of up to about 15 degrees.
• Sensors — four-way sensors, LiDAR, a thermal camera, a high-sensitivity microphone and an air-quality sensor.
• Operation — two patrols by day and seven by night at two-hour intervals. The price was reported as about KRW 80 million per unit.
• Limits — it struggles on lawns, in snow deeper than 3 cm and in heavy rain, and cannot cross a threshold higher than 5 cm.

How much ground is there to cover?

Think of the palaces, Jongmyo Shrine and the royal tombs the Center manages and it becomes clear why autonomous driving is a hard problem here. The photographs below are not of the trial sites, but they show the pattern: wooden halls hundreds of years old around wide courtyards, with steps and changes of level running on from one another. At this stage the realistic goal is not for one robot to cover such grounds in full, but for it to act as a moving CCTV camera that keeps watch over the blind spots people tend to miss.

What visitors should know

• It is not a visitor programme. This is a trial of safety technology, so there is no robot experience or demonstration to attend.
• There is no guarantee of seeing a robot. Patrol routes and times have not been published, and there is only one robot at each site.
• If you meet one, do not block its path. A LiDAR-guided robot stops or goes round when it detects an obstacle, so standing in front of it only delays the patrol.
• Hours and admission at Deoksugung and Seooreung are unchanged. No notice says the trial alters visiting conditions.
• Enquiries about the project go to the Center's Restoration and Maintenance Division (+82-2-6450-3849, +82-2-6450-3848), in Korean.

Getting there, and what to expect on the day

Deoksugung is the easy one: City Hall Station on Lines 1 and 2, and the main gate, Daehanmun, is a minute from the exits. It is open from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm all year with last admission at 8:00 pm, closed on Mondays, and adult admission (ages 25 to 64) is KRW 1,000, bought at the gate with cash or a card; under-25s, over-65s and anyone in hanbok go in free. There is nothing to book and no Korean phone number or account comes into it. Signage inside is bilingual, and the palace website has English pages, so the visit works without any Korean. Seooreung is a different sort of trip: the tombs lie in Goyang, north-west of Seoul, reached by bus from Yeonsinnae Station on Lines 3 and 6 — allow well over an hour from the centre and check the bus on a map app before you go. In September and October the tombs are open from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm with last admission at 5:00 pm, closed on Mondays, and the main information boards are bilingual while the rest of the signage is largely Korean. At both sites the robot, if you come across it at all, is a working patrol and not an exhibit: the press release does not say what language its announcements use, so if it speaks, assume Korean, step aside, and let it pass.