Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., South Korea's largest shipbuilder and industrial robot maker, said Tuesday it has developed the first robot in the country that can transport larger-sized liquefied crystal display (LCD) glass.

The robot was built to transport the mother glass of 10.5-generation LCDs (3,370 mm x 2,940 mm), which is 1.8 times larger than that of 8th-generation LCDs (2,500 mm x 2,200 mm), the company said in an emailed statement.

The LCD mother glass is used in the early stages of manufacturing LCDs.

The new robot can lift mother glass up to 6.9 meters off the floor and has improved its working speed by 10 percent, the company said. Operational precision has also been upgraded by reducing vibration, it said.

The new robot received a favorable evaluation from Chinese LCD panel makers in a recent demonstration, the company said, expecting the annual sale of the robot to China to reach more than 100 units.

Hyundai Heavy produces 10 types of LCD transporting robots and claims 30 percent of the world market and 40 percent at home.

Shares of Hyundai Heavy closed up 1.95 percent at 131,000 won (US$116.7) on the Seoul bourse vs benchmark KOSPI's 0.4 percent drop. (Yonhap)