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Professor Junehwa Song Appointed as the General Chair of the Organizing Committee of ACM SenSys
Professor Junehwa Song from the Schooling of Computing at KAIST has been appointed the general chair of the organizing committee of ACM SenSys—the American Computing Machine (ACM) Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems.
ACM SenSys held its first conference in 2003 to promote research on wireless sensor networks and embedded systems. Since then, it has expanded into an influential international conference especially with the increasing importance in sensor technologies. Recently the committee has expanded its field of interest to mobile sensors, the Internet of Things, smart device system, and security.
Professor Song is considered a world-renown researcher in mobile and ubiquitous computing system. He presented numerous research papers at various conferences organized by ACM. He is also a member of the editorial committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transactions on Mobile Computing journal. For his achievements in the field and flair for coordinating and planning conferences, he is now the first Korean researcher to be appointed the chair of ACM SenSys.
Professor Song said that, as the chair, he would help discover new technology in and applications of networked, wireless sensors that would meet the demands of our modern society.
The 13th ACM SenSys will take place in Seoul—the first one to be held in Asia. The event will begin on November 1, 2015 and last four days. More information about this year’s event can be found at http://sensys.acm.org/2015/.
2015.10.02 View 7557 -
KAIST and Chongqing University of Technology in China Open an International Program
With the help of KAIST, Chongqing University of Technology (CQUT) in China established an electrical engineering and computer science program and admitted their first 66 freshmen this fall semester.
The joint program was created to foster skilled engineers in the fields of electrical engineering and computer science, which are necessary for the development of the Korean and Chinese Industrial Complex located in Chongqing City.
KAIST has provided CQUT with a majority of the program’s curricula currently offered to its students in Daejeon, Korea.
Under the jointly administered program, KAIST takes on education and research while CQUT is responsible for student selection and administration.
KAIST has dispatched eight professors to teach the related fields in English, and 17 CQUT professors will teach the rest of the curricula.
In August 2014, KAIST and CQUT singed a cooperation agreement for education and research exchange and created the CQUT-KAIST Education Cooperation Center, which is headed by Professor Young-Nam Han of the Electrical Engineering Department at KAIST.
The two universities will expand their collaboration to include graduate programs by 2016.
In the picture below, President Steve Kang of KAIST (right) shakes hands with President Shi Xiaohui of Chongqing University of Technology (left).
2015.09.17 View 10322 -
Professor Woontack Woo Demonstrates an Optical Platform Technology for Augmented Reality at Smart Cloud Show
Professor Woontack Woo of the Graduate School of Culture Technology at KAIST participated in the Smart Cloud Show, a technology exhibition, hosted by the university’s Augmented Human Research Center and presented the latest development of his research, an optical platform system for augmented reality.
This event took place on September 16-17, 2015 at Grand Seoul Nine Tree Convention Center in Seoul.
At the event, Professor Woo introduced a smart glass with an embedded augmented reality system, which permits remote collaboration between an avatar and the user’s hand.
The previous remote collaboration was difficult for ordinary users to employ because of its two-dimensional screen and complicated virtual reality system.
However, with the new technology, the camera attached to artificial reality (AR) glasses recognizes the user’s hand and tracks it down to collaborate. The avatar in the virtual space and the user’s hand interact in real space and time.
The key to this technology is the stable, real-time hand-tracking technique that allows the detection of the hand’s locations and the recognition of finger movements even in situations of self-occlusion.
Through this method, a user can touch and manipulate augmented contents as if they were real-life objects, thereby collaborating remotely with another user who is physically distant by linking his or her movements with an avatar.
If this technology is adopted widely, it may bring some economic benefits such as increased productivity due to lower costs for mobility and reduction in social overhead costs from the decrease in the need of traveling long distance.
Professor Woo said, “This technology will provide us with a greater opportunity for collaboration, not necessarily restricted to physical travelling, which can be widely used in the fields of medicine, education, entertainment, and tourism.”
Professor Woo plans to present his research results on hand-movement tracking and detection at the 12th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2015), to be held on October 28-30, 2015, at Kintex in Goyang, Korea.
He will also present a research paper on remote collaboration at the ICAT-EGVE 2015 conference, the merger of the 25th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence (ICAT 2015) and the 20th Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments (EGVE 2015), which will take place on October 28-30, 2015 at the Kyoto International Community House, Kyoto, Japan.
2015.09.16 View 8842 -
KAIST's Research Team Receives the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Transaction on Power Electronics
A research team led by Professor Chun T. Rim of the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has received the First Prize Papers Award from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Power Electronics (TPEL), a peer-reviewed journal that covers fundamental technologies used in the control and conversion of electric power.
A total of three research papers received this award in 2015.
Each year, TPEL’s editors select three best papers among those published in the journal during the preceding calendar year. In 2014, the TPEL published 579 papers. Professor Rim’s paper was picked out as one of the three papers published last year for the First Prize Papers Award.
Entitled “Generalized Active EMF (electromagnetic field) Cancel Methods for Wireless Electric Vehicles (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6684288&tag=1),” the paper proposed, for the first time in the world, three generalized design methods for cancelling the total EMF generated from wireless electric vehicles. This technology, researchers said, can be applied to any wireless power transfer systems.
The award ceremony will be held at the upcoming conference of the 2015 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Expo in September in Montreal, Canada.
2015.08.27 View 10426 -
Omnidirectional Free Space Wireless Charging Developed
The simultaneous charging of multiple mobile devices at 0.5 meter away from the power source is now possible under the international electromagnetic field guidelines.
Mobile devices, such as smartphones and laptops, have become indispensable portable items in modern life, but one big challenge remains to fully enjoying these devices: keeping their batteries charged.
A group of researchers at KAIST has developed a wireless-power transfer (WPT) technology that allows mobile devices to be charged at any location and in any direction, even if the devices are away from the power source, just as Wi-Fi works for Internet connections. With this technology, so long as mobile users stay in a designated area where the charging is available, e.g., the Wi-Power zone, the device, without being tethered to a charger, will pick up power automatically, as needed.
The research team led by Professor Chun T. Rim of the Nuclear and Quantum Engineering Department at KAIST has made great strides in WPT development. Their WPT system is capable of charging multiple mobile devices concurrently and with unprecedented freedom in any direction, even while holding the devices in midair or a half meter away from the power source, which is a transmitter. The research result was published in the June 2015 on-line issue of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, which is entitled “Six Degrees of Freedom Mobile Inductive Power Transfer by Crossed Dipole Tx (Transmitter) and Rx (Receiver) Coils.”
Professor Rim’s team has successfully showcased the technology on July 7, 2015 at a lab on KAIST’s campus. They used high-frequency magnetic materials in a dipole coil structure to build a thin, flat transmitter (Tx) system shaped in a rectangle with a size of 1m2. Either 30 smartphones with a power capacity of one watt each or 5 laptops with 2.4 watts each can be simultaneously and wirelessly charged at a 50 cm distance from the transmitter with six degrees of freedom, regardless of the devices’ three-axes positions and directions. This means that the device can receive power all around the transmitter in three-dimensional space. The maximum power transfer efficiency for the laptops was 34%. The researchers said that to fabricate plane Tx and Rx coils with the six-degree-of-freedom characteristic was a bottleneck of WPT for mobile applications.
Dipole Coil Resonance System (DCRS)
The research team used the Dipole Coil Resonance System (DCRS) to induce magnetic fields, which was developed by the team in 2014 for inductive power transfer over an extended distance. The DCRS is composed of two (transmitting and receiving) magnetic dipole coils, placed in parallel, with each coil having a ferrite core and connected with a resonant capacitor. Comparing to a conventional loop coil, the dipole coil is very compact and has a less dimension. Therefore, a crossed dipole structure has 2-dimension rather than 3-dimension of a crossed loop coil structure. The DCRS has a great advantage to transfer power even when the resonance frequency changes in the range of 1% (Q factor is below 100). The ferrite cores are optimally designed to reduce the core volume by half, and their ability to transfer power is nearly unaffected by human bodies or surrounding metal objects, making DCRS ideal to transmit wireless power in emergency situations. In a test conducted in 2014, Professor Rim succeeded in transferring 209 watts of power wirelessly to the distance of five meters. (See KAIST’s press release on DCRS for details: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-04/tkai-wpt041714.php.)
Greater Flexibility and Safer Charging
The research team rearranged the two dipole coils from a parallel position to cross them in order to generate rotating magnetic fields, which was embedded in the Tx’s flat platform. This has made it possible for mobile devices to receive power from any direction.
Although wireless-power technology has been applied to smartphones, it could not offer any substantial advantages over traditional wired charging because the devices still require close contact with the transmitter, a charging pad. To use the devices freely and safely, including in public spaces, the WPT technology should provide mobile users with six degrees of freedom at a distance. Until now, all wireless-charging technologies have had difficulties with the problem of short charging distance, mostly less than 10 cm, as well as charging conditions that the devices should be placed in a fixed position. For example, the Galaxy S6 could only be charged wirelessly in a fixed position, having one degree of freedom. The degree of freedom represents mobile devices’ freedom of movement in three-dimensional space.
In addition, the DCRS works at a low magnetic field environment. Based on the magnetic flux shielding technology developed by the research team, the level of magnetic flux is below the safety level of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guideline (27µT) for general public exposure to electromagnetic field (EMF).
Professor Rim said, “Our transmitter system is safe for humans and compatible with other electronic devices. We have solved three major issues of short charging distance, the dependence on charging directions, and plane coil structures of both Tx and Rx, which have blocked the commercialization of WPT.”
Currently, the research team and KAIST’s spin-off company, TESLAS, Inc., have been conducting pilot projects to apply DCRS in various places such as cafes and offices.
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU64pMyJioc
Demonstration of 30 Watts Range Omnidirectional Wireless-charging at a Laboratory on KAIST’s Campus
Figure 1: Wide-range omnidirectional wireless-charging system based on DCRS can charge multiple numbers of mobile devices simultaneously in a 1m3 range. The above is a transmitter, and the below is a Samsung Galaxy Note with a receiver embedded inside.
Figure 2: Demonstration of the omnidirectional wireless-charging system (clockwise from top of the left, robust charging despite the presence of metal obstacles, omnidirectional charging, long distance charging, and multiple devices charging)
2015.07.08 View 16850 -
Experts Gather to Develop a Korean Supercomputer on KAIST Campus
KAIST hosted an inauguration ceremony for the Super-Capacity Computing Advancement Forum on July 2, 2015, to increase Korea's national computing capacity. It represents a gathering consisting of experts drawn across industry, university, and institutes in super-capacity computing.
More than ten experts from the university, including President Steve Kang and Professor Oh-Joon Kwon of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, attended the ceremony. This forum was created to secure a competitive edge in the global market by establishing a long-term strategy for the development of super computers.
The recent rise of new service industries, such as voice recognition, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, has increased the need for super-capacity computing to deal more rapidly with big data. The need is made more urgent by increased investment by leading countries in this field.
The forum will organize and operate working-level subcommittees to promote in-depth discussions on issues related to super-capacity computing systems. Open forums and public hearings will be held until October, to gather information and insights needed to advance the field.
President Steve Kang, the Chairman of the Forum, said, “The forum will have a great impact on Korea’s effort to become a world leader in super-capacity computing. We plan to debate the pros and cons of potential solutions to the Korean government, to assist them in building the nation’s competitiveness in super-capacity computing capability.”
2015.07.07 View 6493 -
Professor Jae Kyu Lee Appointed the President of Association for Information Systems
Chair Professor Jae Kyu Lee of KAIST’s College of Business was appointed the President of Association for Information Systems (AIS) on July 1, 2015. Professor Lee will serve a one-year term, which will end in June 2016. With four thousand members researching information systems from 90 different nations, AIS is the largest academic society in the fields of information system and business process engineering.
Professor Lee has proposed his idea of “the Bright Internet” as the official vision of AIS. Employing this vision, AIS will create technology and systems, as well as sponsor international cooperation to solve fundamental issues of the Internet including concerns over hacking and cyber-related crimes.
The extent of damage from cyber-related crimes grows each year. Every day, 56 billion junk emails are sent to computers which are hacked and become “zombie” computers. The social cost of such crimes is estimated to be 400 billion US dollars annually.
Based on "the Bright Internet," AIS will build a preventative Internet security system by adopting ground rules that make attackers responsible for the damages from such crimes. The system will also modify technology and other systems to minimize privacy infringement while maintaining security. Finally, the Bright Internet proposes to adopt an international standard for this security system through collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Professor Lee said, “The vision of the Bright Internet started from an awareness that we needed to resolve issues such as Internet addiction, indiscriminate media exposure, and verbal violence. This vision developed by the experts from all around the world will not only bring a revolution of a reliable Internet platform to a global scale but also reshape the Korean Internet platform.”
2015.07.02 View 7658 -
KAIST Professor Sung-Ju Lee Appointed a Technical Program Chair of INFOCOM
Professor Sung-Ju Lee of the Department of Computer Science at KAIST has been appointed to serve as a technical program chair of IEEE INFOCOME. The computer communication conference, started in 1982, is influential in the research fields of the Internet, wireless, and data centers.
Professor Lee is the first Korean to serve as a program chair. He has been acknowledged for his work in network communications. In the 34th conference, which will be held next year, he will take part in selecting 650 experts in the field to become members and supervise the evaluation of around 1,600 papers.
Professor Lee is the leading researcher in the field of wireless mobile network systems. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and served as the general chair of the 20th Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGMOBILE Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing & Networking (MobiCom 2014). He is on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC) and IEEE Internet of Things Journals.
Professor Lee said, “I hope to continue the traditions of the conference, as well as integrating research from various areas of network communication. I will strive to create a program with high technology transfer probability.”
The 34th IEEE INFOCOM will take place in San Francisco in April 2016.
2015.07.02 View 8477 -
KAIST's Patina Engraving System Awarded at ACM CHI
Professor Tek-Jin Nam’s research team of the Industrial Design Department of KAIST received the Best Paper Award in the 2015 Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) which was held from April 18 to 23, 2015. The team consisted of two KAIST students: Moon-Hwan Lee, a Ph.D. candidate, and Sejin Cha, a master's student. The team was the first in Asia to receive the award.
The ACM CHI represents the premier conference in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). This year’s event, held in Seoul, South Korea, was the first conference that the ACM had held in Asia in its thirty-three year history. The KAIST team’s paper, entitled “Patina Engraver: Visualizing Activity Logs as Patina in Fashionable Trackers,” ranked in the top 1% of 2,000 submitted papers.
The team developed Patina Engraver, an activity tracker, which monitors and tracks fitness-related metrics such as distances walked or run, calorie consumption, heartbeat, sleep quality, and blood pressure. The device wirelessly connects to a computer or smartphone so that it can store and utilize long-term tracking data.
However, what makes Patina Engraver, a smart wristband, different from other health trackers is its ability to display different design patterns based on users’ activity on the surface of the wristband. The research team was inspired to build this system from the fact that wearable electronics including activity trackers can be used not only as health care devices, but also as fashion items to express emotions and personalities.
Equipped with an engraving feature, the charging pad or holder for Patina Engraver draws individualized patterns to reflect the user’s activities, such as walking or running, while the device is being charged. The pattern display syncs with the frequency of usage, therefore, the more the tracker is used, the greater the number of patterns will show up.
According to the team, since Patina Engraver provides users with a personalized illustration of their activity on the tracker, users are more motivated to put on the tracker and exercise.
Professor Nam said, “This research can be applied in producing other wearable devices to enhance users’ emotional satisfaction. When wearable technology is combined with design and emotion, the industry market will quickly expand.”
Figure 1: Patina engraving system developed by KAIST research team
Figure 2: The process of engraving illustrations of the activity records onto the tracker
Figure 3: Personalized activity trackers based on activity records
2015.05.15 View 13490 -
Professor Rim Presents at IAEA Workshop in Vienna
Professor Chun-Taek Rim of the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at KAIST recently attended the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s workshop on the Application of Wireless Technologies in Nuclear Power Plant Instrumentation and Control System. It took place on March 30-April 2, 2015, in Vienna, Austria.
Representing Korea, Professor Rim gave a talk entitled “Highly Reliable Wireless Power and Communications under Severe Accident of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs).” About 20 industry experts from 12 countries such as AREVA (France), Westinghouse (US), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US), Hitachi (Japan), and ENEA (Italy) joined the meeting.
The IAEA hosted the workshop to explore the application of wireless technology for the operation and management of NPPs. It formed a committee consisting of eminent professionals worldwide in NPP instrumentation and control systems, communications, and nuclear power to examine this issue in-depth and to conduct various research projects for the next three years.
In particular, the committee will concentrate its research on improving the reliability and safety of using wireless technology, not only in the normal operation of nuclear plants but also in extreme conditions such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. The complementation, economic feasibility, and standardization of NPPs when applying wireless technology will be also discussed.
Professor Rim currently leads the Nuclear Power Electronics
and Robotics Lab at KAIST (http://tesla.kaist.ac.kr/index_eng.php?lag=eng).
Picture 1: Professors Rim presents his topic at the IAEA Workshop in Vienna.
Picture 2: The IAEA Workshop Participants
2015.04.07 View 12676 -
Professor Shim Featured with His Drone System in IEEE Spectrum
The IEEE Spectrum, a technology and science magazine published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), featured an article of KAIST’s autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) entitled “South Korea Prepares for Drone vs. Drone Combat,” posted on April 1, 2015.
The article introduces the anti-drone defense system being developed by Professor “David” Hyunchul Shim of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at KAIST. With the goal of developing guard drones that can detect and capture unknown UAVs, the anti-drone defense system consists of reconnaissance drones, agile multi-rotor UAVs equipped with nets which are dropped to snare enemy drones, and transport UAVs to carry smaller drones.
Professor Shim currently leads KAIST’s Unmanned System Research Group (USRG, http://unmanned.kaist.ac.kr/) and Center of Field Robotics for Innovation, Exploration, aNd Defense (C-FRIEND).
For the article, please go to http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/south-korea-drone-vs-drone.
2015.04.02 View 13034 -
KAIST & the Classic 500 Co Sign for Mobile Healthcare Research
KAIST and The Classic 500 Co., Ltd., an elder care provider based in Seoul, signed a memorandum of understanding to expand medical services by cooperating on the research of medical services and IT on March 24, 2015.
Twenty people from the two institutions, including President Steve Kang, Dong-Hyun Bak, CEO of The Classic 500 and Mun-Sul Jeong, a former KAIST Chairman of the Board, attended the signing ceremony.
Under the agreement, the two institutions will cooperate on mobile healthcare research and the development of a telemedicine system. They will also research and develop a system to better serve society with medical services.
The Classic 500, established by Konkuk University in Korea, provides nursing care services and assisted living facilities for senior citizens.
2015.03.26 View 8673