Samsung SGR-A1

The SGR-A1 is a type of autonomous sentry gun that was jointly developed by Samsung Techwin (now Hanwha Aerospace) and Korea University to assist South Korean troops in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. It is widely considered as the first unit of its kind to have an integrated system that includes surveillance, tracking, firing, and voice recognition. While units of the SGR-A1 have been reportedly deployed, their number is unknown due to the project being "highly classified".

== Development and origin == thumb|Guards at a South Korean checkpoint facing away from the DMZ in 2005 The Samsung SGR-A1 project started with an initial investment by the South Korean government in 2003 and was developed by four institutions led primarily by Hanwha Techwin and Korea University. With prototypes produced in 2006, the system was designed to replace human-oriented guarding along the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and to provide the "perfect guard operation". The primary goal of the project, as quoted by Shin Hyun-don from the South Korean defense ministry "is to transform the current guard and observation mission on fronts conducted by soldiers into a robot system". The entirety of the DMZ is heavily patrolled and is touted as the most militarized border in the world, despite its name. This, combined with the fact that South Korea's military personnel is nearly half the size of North Korea's, may have influenced the South Korean government's decision to invest more in autonomous robot guards.