South Korea is turning to robots to help it patrol its borders and to guard its prisons.

Officials in the South Korean city of Pohang are going to use robots to help guards patrol the prison at night. The project is sponsored by the South Korean Ministry of Justice and a trial run of the robots will be held for a month in the jail from March. The project will cost at least 1 billion-won or about $863,000.

The robot guards are programmed to patrol the corridors of prisons and to monitor the conditions of the prisoners inside the cells. The robots aren't after the human guards' job just yet. They will alert human guards if they detect any unusual activity such as violent behavior in the cells. The robots can also act as a communication channel between the inmates and the human guards if there is an emergency.

"Unlike CCTV that just monitors cells through screens, the robots are programmed to analyze various activities of those in prison and identify abnormal behavior," Professor Lee Baik-chul of Kyonggi University, told the Wall Street Journal.

The prison guards are mostly supportive about the project as it can reduce the guards' workload at night. The reaction of inmates is more of a concern to Lee.

"That's a concern. But the robots are not terminators. Their job is not cracking down on violent prisoners. They are helpers. When an inmate is in a life-threatening situation or seriously ill, he or she can reach out for help quickly," he said.

Prof. Lee and his team are working on making the robot look more "humane and friendly" to inmates. The 1.5 meter tall robot with its big eyes and yellow color already looks non-threatening.

South Korea is also using robots to patrol its borders in the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea. The gun-packing sentry robot was developed by Samsung Techwin Co. for the South Korean government. The SGR-A1 robot has a low-light camera and pattern recognition software to distinguish its targets. And unlike the robot guard, the SGR-A1 robot will shoot hostile enemies with its built-in Daewoo K3 machine gun and 40mm automatic grenade launcher.

The demilitarized zone between the two Koreas stretches about 250 kilometers and patrolling its entire length can be difficult for human guards. The sentry robot will make the job easier. The robot can detect intruders from up to 500 meters away even in the night by using its three color cameras and heat and motion sensors. A digital video recorder can record data for up to 60 days at a time.

The robot has an automatic mode that can allow the sentry-bot to make a decision to shoot intruders. The ultimate decision about shooting should be made by a human according to Myung Ho Yoo, a principal research engineer at Samsung's Optics & Digital Imaging Division in Seongnam City but that decision should be irrelevant in the DMZ.

"When you cross the line, you're automatically an enemy," Yoo told IEE Spectrum. Two SGR-A1 robots were integrated into a single unit, a defense ministry spokesman said. The 400 million won ($343,600) unit was installed last month at a guard post in the central section of the Demilitarized Zone which bisects the peninsula, according to Yonhap news agency.