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Wearable Robot 'WalkON Suit' Off to Cybathlon 2020
Standing upright and walking alone are very simple but noble motions that separate humans from many other creatures. Wearable and prosthetic technologies have emerged to augment human function in locomotion and manipulation. However, advances in wearable robot technology have been especially momentous to Byoung-Wook Kim, a triplegic for 22 years following a devastating car accident.
Kim rejoiced after standing upright and walking again by putting on the ‘WalkON Suit,’ the wearable robot developed by Professor Kyoungchul Kong’s team. Even more, Kim won third prize in the powered exoskeleton race at Cybathlon 2016, an international cyborg Olympics hosted by ETH Zurich.
Now Kim and Professor Kong’s team are all geared up for the Cybathlon Championship 2020. Professor Kong and his startup, Angel Robotics, held a kickoff ceremony for Cybathlon 2020 at KAIST on June 24. The 2020 championship will take place in Switzerland.
Only pilots with complete paralysis of the legs resulting from spinal cord injuries are eligible to participate in the Cybathlon, which takes place every four years. Pilots compete against each other while completing everyday tasks using technical assistance systems in six different disciplines: a brain-computer interface race, a functional electrical stimulation bike race, a powered arm prosthesis race, a powered leg prosthesis race, a powered exoskeleton race, and a powered wheelchair race. The 2016 championship drew 66 pilots from 56 teams representing 25 countries.
In the powered exoskeleton race, pilots complete everyday activities such as getting up from a sofa and overcoming obstacles such as stairs, ramps, or slopes and up to four pilots compete simultaneously on tracks to solve six tasks; and the pilot that solves the most tasks in the least amount of time wins the race.
(Kim, a triplegic for 22 years demonstrates walking and climbing the stairs (below photo) wearing the WalkOn Suit during the media day on June 21 at KAIST.)
Kim, who demonstrated walking and climbing the stairs wearing the WalkON Suit during the media day for the Cybathlon 2020 kickoff ceremony on June 21 at KAIST, said, “I have been confined to a wheelchair for more than 20 years. I am used to it so I feel like the wheelchair is one of my body parts. Actually, I don’t feel any big difficulties in doing everyday tasks in wheelchair. But whenever I face the fact that I will never be able to stand up with my own two legs again, I am so devastated.” He continued, “I still remember the day when I stood up with my own two legs by myself after 22 years. It was beyond description.”
The market for wearable robots, especially for exoskeleton robots, is continuing to grow as the aging population has been a major challenge in almost every advanced country. The global market for these robots expects to see annual growth of 41.2% to 8.3 billion US dollars by 2025. Healthcare wearable robots for the elderly and rehabilitation take up the half of the market share followed by wearable robots for industrial and defense purposes.
Professor Kong from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and his colleagues have developed two wearable robot systems in 2014: The "WalkON Suit" for complete paraplegics and “Angel Suit” for those with partial impairment in walking ability such as the elderly and rehabilitation patients.
Professor Kong said after 15 years of basic research, the team is now able to develop its own distinct technologies. He said their robots are powered by non-resistant precision drives with algorithms recognizing the user’s moving intention. Incorporated with prosthetic devices technology from the Severance Rehabilitation Hospital, their control technology has led to the production of a customizable robot suit optimized for each user’s physical condition.
The WalkON Suit, which boasts a maximum force of 250 Nm and maximum rotation speed of 45 RPM, gives the user high-energy efficiency modeled after the physiology of the human leg. It allows users to walk on flat ground and down stairs, climb up and down inclines, and sit and lie down. Currently the battery lasts five to six hours for locomotion and the approximate 25 kg of robot weight still remains a technical challenge to upgrade.
Professor Kong’s team has grafted AR glass technology into the WalkOn Suit that one of his pilots put on for the torch relay of the PyongChang Paralympics in 2018. His team is now upgrading the WalkON Suit 4.0 for next year’s competition. Severance Rehabilitation Hospital will help the seven pilots with their training.
Professor Kong said his goal is to make robots that can make people with disabilities much more independent. He stressed, “Wearable robots should be designed for each single user. We provide a very good graphical user interface so that we can design, check, and also verify our optimized design for users’ best performance.”
(Seven pilots and Professor Kong (fifth from left in second row) pose with guests who joined the Cybathlon 2020 kickoff ceremony. President Shin (fifth from right) made a congratulatory remarks during the ceremony.)
2019.06.25 View 43393 -
Anti-drone Technology for Anti-Terrorism Applications
(from top right clockwise: Professor Yongdae Kim,
PhD Candidates Yujin Kwon, Juhwan Noh, Hocheol Shin, and Dohyun Kim)
KAIST researchers have developed anti-drone technology that can hijack other drones by spoofing its location using fake GPS signals. This technology can safely guide a drone to a desired location without any sudden change in direction in emergency situations, and thus respond effectively to dangerous drones such as those intending to carry out acts of terrorism.
Advancements in the drone industry have led to the wider use of drones in our daily lives in areas of reconnaissance, searching and rescuing, disaster prevention and response, and delivery services. At the same time, there has also been a growing concern about privacy, safety, and security issues regarding drones, especially those arising from intrusion into private property and secure facilities. Therefore, the anti-drone industry is rapidly expanding to detect and respond to this possible drone invasion.
The current anti-drone systems used in airports and other key locations utilize electronic jamming signals, high-power lasers, or nets to neutralize drones. For example, drones trespassing on airports are often countered with simple jamming signals that can prevent the drones from moving and changing position, but this may result in a prolonged delay in flight departures and arrivals at the airports. Drones used for terrorist attacks – armed with explosives or weapons – must also be neutralized a safe distance from the public and vital infrastructure to minimize any damage.
Due to this need for a new anti-drone technology to counter these threats, a KAIST research team led by Professor Yongdae Kim from the School of Electrical Engineering has developed technology that securely thwarts drones by tricking them with fake GPS signals.
Fake GPS signals have been used in previous studies to cause confusion inside the drone regarding its location, making the drone drift from its position or path. However, such attack tactics cannot be applied in GPS safety mode. GPS safety mode is an emergency mode that ensures drone safety when the signal is cut or location accuracy is low due to a fake GPS signals. This mode differs between models and manufacturers.
Professor Kim’s team analyzed the GPS safety mode of different drone models made from major drone manufacturers such as DJI and Parrot, made classification systems, and designed a drone abduction technique that covers almost all the types of drone GPS safety modes, and is universally applicable to any drone that uses GPS regardless of model or manufacturer. The research team applied their new technique to four different drones and have proven that the drones can be safely hijacked and guided to the direction of intentional abduction within a small margin of error.
Professor Kim said, “Conventional consumer drones equipped with GPS safety mode seem to be safe from fake GPS signals, however, most of these drones are able to be detoured since they detect GPS errors in a rudimentary manner.” He continued, “This technology can contribute particularly to reducing damage to airports and the airline industry caused by illegal drone flights.”
The research team is planning to commercialize the developed technology by applying it to existing anti-drone solutions through technology transfer.” This research, featured in the ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS) on April 9, was supported by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD).
Image 1.
Experimental environment in which a fake GPS signal was produced from a PC and injected into the drone signal using directional antennae
Publication:
Juhwan Noh, Yujin Kwon, Yunmok Son, Hocheol Shin, Dohyun Kim, Jaeyeong Choi, and Yongdae Kim. 2019. Tractor Beam: Safe-hijacking of Consumer Drones with Adaptive GPS Spoofing. ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security. New York, NY, USA, Vol. 22, No. 2, Article 12, 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3309735
Profile: Prof. Yongdae Kim, MS, PhD
yongdaek@kaist.ac.kr
https://www.syssec.kr/
Professor
School of Electrical Engineering
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
http://kaist.ac.kr Daejeon 34141, Korea
Profile: Juhwan Noh, PhD Candidate
juhwan@kaist.ac.kr
PhD Candidate
System Security (SysSec) Lab
School of Electrical Engineering
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
http://kaist.ac.kr Daejeon 34141, Korea
(END)
2019.06.25 View 46135 -
Efficiently Producing Fatty Acids and Biofuels from Glucose
Researchers have presented a new strategy for efficiently producing fatty acids and biofuels that can transform glucose and oleaginous microorganisms into microbial diesel fuel, with one-step direct fermentative production.
The newly developed strain, created by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee and his team, showed the highest efficiency in producing fatty acids and biodiesels ever reported. It will be expected to serve as a new platform to sustainably produce a wide array of fatty acid-based products from glucose and other carbon substrates.
Fossil fuels, which have long been energy resources for our daily lives, are now facing serious challenges: depletion of their reserves and their role in global warming. The production of sustainable bio-based renewable energy has emerged as an essential alternative and many studies to replace fossil fuels are underway. One of the representative examples is biodiesel. Currently, it is mainly being produced through the transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fats.
The research team engineered oleaginous microorganisms, Rhodococcus opacus, to produce fatty acids and their derivatives that can be used as biodiesel from glucose, one of the most abundant and cheap sugars derived from non-edible biomass.
Professor Lee’s team has already engineered Escherichia coli to produce short-chain hydrocarbons, which can be used as gasoline (published in Nature as the cover paper in 2013). However, the production efficiency of the short-chain hydrocarbons using E. coli (0.58 g/L) fell short of the levels required for commercialization.
To overcome these issues, the team employed oil-accumulating Rhodococcus opacus as a host strain in this study. First, the team optimized the cultivation conditions of Rhodococcus opacus to maximize the accumulation of oil (triacylglycerol), which serves as a precursor for the biosynthesis of fatty acids and their derivatives. Then, they systematically analyzed the metabolism of the strain and redesigned it to enable higher levels of fatty acids and two kinds of fatty acid-derived biodiesels (fatty acid ethyl esters and long-chain hydrocarbons) to be produced.
They found that the resulting strains produced 50.2, 21.3, and 5.2 g/L of fatty acids, fatty acid ethyl esters, and long-chain hydrocarbons, respectively. These are all the highest concentrations ever reported by microbial fermentations. It is expected that these strains can contribute to the future industrialization of microbial-based biodiesel production.
“This technology creates fatty acids and biodiesel with high efficiency by utilizing lignocellulose, one of the most abundant resources on the Earth, without depending on fossil fuels and vegetable or animal oils. This will provide new opportunities for oil and petroleum industries, which have long relied on fossil fuels, to turn to sustainable and eco-friendly biotechnologies,” said Professor Lee.
This paper titled “Engineering of an oleaginous bacterium for the production of fatty acids and fuels” was published in Nature Chemical Biology on June 17.
This work was supported by the Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Changes on Systems Metabolic Engineering for Biorefineries from the Ministry of Science and ICT through the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea (NRF-2012M1A2A2026556 and NRF-2012M1A2A2026557).
(Figure: Metabolic engineering for the production of free fatty acids (FFAs), fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs), and long-chain hydrocarbons (LCHCs) in Rhodococcus opacus PD630. Researchers have presented a new strategy for efficiently producing fatty acids and biofuels that can transform glucose and oleaginous microorganisms into microbial diesel fuel, with one-step direct fermentative production.)
# # #
Source:
Hye Mi Kim, Tong Un Chae, So Young Choi, Won Jun Kim and Sang Yup Lee. Engineering of an oleaginous bacterium for the production of fatty acids and fuels. Nature Chemical Biology ( https://www.nature.com/nchembio/ ) DOI: 10.1038/s41589-019-0295-5
Profile
Dr. Sang Yup Lee
leesy@kaist.ac.kr
Distinguished Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
KAIST
2019.06.19 View 52459 -
Professor Yim Decorated with the Chongjo Order of Merit
Professor Yong-Taek Yim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering was awarded the highest order of merit, the “Chongjo Keunjong Medal,” bestowed to public officials by the government in celebration of Invention Day on May 27.
Professor Yim was recognized for his innovative achievements to increase royalty income by introducing an IP-based management system at the Korean Institute of Machinery & Materials. He served as the president of KIMM for three years from 2014.
His idea led to new approaches to help explore diverse revenue creating sources such as dividend earnings and share sales, apart from simply relying on technology transfer fees. His efforts to disseminate the in-house R&D results also led to the foundation of six tech-based startups and spinoffs, which generated 11.2 billion KRW in sales. He also helped set up three spinoffs abroad.
Professor Yim said, “I pushed employee invention as a new value creator at KIMM. I thank each and every researcher and staff member at KIMM who worked so hard to create such an innovative IP-based R&D environment.”
2019.05.28 View 9087 -
Engineered Microbial Production of Grape Flavoring
(Image 1: Engineered bacteria that produce grape flavoring.)
Researchers report a microbial method for producing an artificial grape flavor. Methyl anthranilate (MANT) is a common grape flavoring and odorant compound currently produced through a petroleum-based process that uses large volumes of toxic acid catalysts.
Professor Sang-Yup Lee’s team at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering demonstrated production of MANT, a naturally occurring compound, via engineered bacteria. The authors engineered strains of Escherichia coli and Corynebacetrium glutamicum to produce MANT through a plant-based engineered metabolic pathway.
The authors tuned the bacterial metabolic pathway by optimizing the levels of AAMT1, the key enzyme in the process. To maximize production of MANT, the authors tested six strategies, including increasing the supply of a precursor compound and enhancing the availability of a co-substrate. The most productive strategy proved to be a two-phase extractive culture, in which MANT was extracted into a solvent. This strategy produced MANT on the scale of 4.47 to 5.74 grams per liter, a significant amount, considering that engineered microbes produce most natural products at a scale of milligrams or micrograms per liter.
According to the authors, the results suggest that MANT and other related molecules produced through industrial processes can be produced at scale by engineered microbes in a manner that would allow them to be marketed as natural one, instead of artificial one.
This study, featured at the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA on May 13, was supported by the Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Changes on Systems Metabolic Engineering for Biorefineries from the Ministry of Science and ICT.
(Image 2. Overview of the strategies applied for the microbial production of grape flavoring.)
2019.05.15 View 58303 -
Education Innovation Day Reaffirms Rewarding of Excellence
Professors Tae-Eog Lee and Il-Chul Moon from the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering received the Linkgenesis Best Teacher Award and the Soo-Young Lee Teaching Innovation Award on May 10. They were each awarded with 10 million KRW in prize money during the Education Innovation Day ceremony held at the Chung Kun-mo conference hall.
The award was endowed by KAIST Alumni Scholarship Chairman Hyung-Kyu Lim and KAIST Foundation Chairman Soo-Young Lee to support the innovation initiative and acknowledge faculty members who made significant contributions to educational innovation and benefited the general public though their innovations.
“KAIST’s vision for excellence and commitment to innovation is a game changer. Educational innovation is one of five pillars of Vision 2031, and it is our priority to foster critical and creative thinking students,” said President Sung-Chul Shin at the ceremony. All the awardees made presentation on their innovative projects and shared their ideas on better pedagogical methodology for next generation.
Professor Lee, dean of the KAIST Academy and the head of the Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching was recognized for his contribution to enhancing educational quality through innovative learning and teaching methodology development. He has set up an Education 3.0 Initiative, an online education platform for flipped learning at KAIST.
Professor Moon also upgraded the online education platform to the 4.0 version and extended KAIST’s massive online courses through KOOC framework. This open platform offers more than 62 courses, with more than 170 thousand users registered since 2014.
Professor Song-Hong Park from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering and Professor Jae-Woo Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering also won the Excellence Award.
2019.05.10 View 10725 -
KAIST Earns AACSB Business School Accreditation
The KAIST College of Business re-earned business school accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. The school first earned the accreditation in 2003, and has continued to receive the accreditation four consecutive times. Currently only 5% of the 16,000 business schools around the world have earned AACSB accreditation. KAIST received a good evaluation for the competitive research of its faculty, its executive education programs based on strong industry-academia ties, and specialized MBA and master’s program, which includes programs such as social entrepreneurship and green business and policy.Alexander Triantis, dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and a judge for AACSB Accreditation said, “I was impressed to see students from KAIST have a high standard of knowledge. A number of its graduates continue to be appointed as professors of top universities abroad, which shows its strong global competence”. AACSB was founded in 1916 by deans of business colleges from prestigious universities such as Harvard University, Stanford University and Columbia University, to provide business and accounting accreditation to universities. Evaluation for AACSB accreditation takes place every five years. Schools are evaluated based on fifteen standards, including student admission and graduation requirements, student-faculty ratios, faculty’s intellectual contributions, research infrastructure, global cooperation, and industry-academia programs. They can be eligible for re-accreditation if they satisfy the conditions offered by AACSB International and are committed to continuous improvement every five years. KAIST also earned the accreditation from the European Foundation for Management Development Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) three consecutive times since 2010. In 2013, it earned membership into the Partnership in International Management (PIM). Membership is only possible for those who have AACSB and EQUIS accreditation and they can be listed as a candidate school through voting. The candidate schools can finally earn membership after one year of strict screening. As of January 2019, there are 65 prestigious graduate schools of business, including KAIST, listed as PIM members.
2019.02.01 View 7425 -
OUIC Presents the Six Most Promising Techs Transferrable to Local SMEs
KAIST will showcase the six most promising technologies for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on November 14 in the Academic Cultural Complex. To strengthen the competitive edge of local SMEs in Daejeon, the Office of University-Industry made a survey of their technological needs and came up with the six most promising technologies. Developers will introduce their technologies during the session.Besides the introduction of the promising technologies, the session will also provide a program named University to Business (U2B) to match up technologies according to the SMEs’ needs. SMEs who wish to engage in technology transfers can receive counseling and other support programs during the session.First, Professor Seok-Hyung Bae from the Department of Industrial Design will present a technology for controlling cooperation robots. Professor Bae inserted flexible materials between the controllers to allow robots to use both hands stably and operate more accurately and swiftly. It can be applied to automatic robots, industrial robots, and service robots.Professor Hyun Myung from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering will demonstrate a robot navigation system in a dynamic indoor and outdoor environment, which can be applied to robotics in logistics, smart factories, and autonomous vehicles. Providing robust simultaneous localization and mapping systems, this technology shows high-performing navigation with low-cost sensors.Meanwhile, Professor Siyoung Choi from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering will introduce a technology for forming stable adhesive emulsions. An emulsion is a stable mixture of water and oil. Conventionally, a small amount of surfactant is added to stabilize an emulsion. Here, Professor Choi developed a stable emulsion system without using any chemical substances. This technology can be applied to various fields, including the cosmetics, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and painting industries. The session will also present smart IoTs platform technology developed by Professor Jinhong Yang from the KAIST Institute for IT Convergence. His technology minimizes errors occurring when multiple IoT devices are connected simultaneously. Professor Yong Keun Park from the Department of Physics will introduce a technology for measuring glycated hemoglobin by using the optical properties of red blood cells. This technology can be applied to make low-cost, small-sized measuring equipment. It can also be used for vitro diagnoses including diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, tumors, kidney disease, and infectious diseases. Professor Yong Man Ro from the School of Electrical Engineering will show technology for biometric access control. Conventional technologies for face recognition fall behind other biometrics. Professor Ro and his team developed a facial dynamics interpreting network which allows very accurate facial recognition by interpreting the relationships between facial local dynamics and estimating facial traits. This technology can be applied to security and communication in finance, computers, and information system.KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin said, “KAIST will continue to support SMEs to have stronger competitiveness in the market. Through technology transfer, we will drive innovation in technological commercialization where a university’s research and development creates economic value.”
2018.11.13 View 10843 -
Team KAT Wins the Autonomous Car Challenge
(Team KAT receiving the Presidential Award)
A KAIST team won the 2018 International Autonomous Car Challenge for University Students held in Daegu on November 2.
Professor Seung-Hyun Kong from the ChoChunShik Graduate School of Green Transportation and his team participated in this contest with the team named KAT (KAIST Autonomous Technologies). The team received the Presidential Award with a fifty million won cash prize and an opportunity for a field trip abroad.
The competition was conducted on actual roads with Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAV), which incorporate autonomous driving technologies and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication system.
In this contest, the autonomous vehicles were given a mission to pick up passengers or parcels. Through the V2X communication, the contest gave current location of the passengers or parcels, their destination, and service profitability according to distance and level of service difficulty.
The participating vehicles had to be equipped very accurate and robust navigation system since they had to drive on narrow roads as well as go through tunnels where GPS was not available. Moreover, they had to use camera-based recognition technology that was invulnerable to backlight as the contest was in the late afternoon.
The contest scored the mission in the following way: the vehicles get points if they pick up passengers and safely drop them off at their destination; on the other hand, points are deducted when they violate lanes or traffic lights. It will be a major black mark if a participant sitting in the driver’s seat needs to get involved in driving due to a technical issue.
Youngbo Shim of KAT said, “We believe that we got major points for technical superiority in autonomous driving and our algorithm for passenger selection.”
This contest, hosted by Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, was the first international competition for autonomous driving on actual roads. A total of nine teams participated in the final contest, four domestic teams and five teams allied with overseas universities such as Tsinghua University, Waseda University, and Nanyang Technological University.
Professor Kong said, “There is still a long way to go for fully autonomous vehicles that drive flexibly under congested traffic conditions. However, we will continue to our research in order to achieve high-quality autonomous driving technology.”
(Team KAT getting ready for the challenge)
2018.11.06 View 14730 -
KAIST Launches Woorisae II
Professor Sejin Kwon from the Department of Aerospace Engineering and his team succeeded in launching a science rocket, named ‘Woorisae II’ at Saemanguem reclamation. This rocket was developed in collaboration with the Satellite Technology Research Lab (SaRTec).
The test-firing was conducted at 10:43 am on Sunday October 28, 2018 (35°N 42’ 06” 126°E 33’ 36”, Radius of 0.6NM). This launch was the follow-up to the previous launch that was cancelled due to not gaining approval for using the airspace.
Professor Kwon’s team put a great deal of effort into securing the land for the rocket launch. As a result, they got approval from the Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency for the land and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport for the use of the airspace. The Republic of Korea Air Force and United States Air Force also approved the use of the airspace for the launch of the science rocket for research purposes.
Woorisae II is 2.2 meters long with a diameter of 20cm, and weighs 13kg without a payload. The rocket is powered by a hybrid rocket with hydrogen peroxide oxidizer producing 100 kg of force. The Woorisae II sounding rocket was designed to burn for five seconds and then continue inertial flight for 20 seconds. The target altitude of Woorisae II was set at 3,300 feet to comply with the airspace approval.
The team developed the core components, including a hybrid rocket propulsion system, flight computer and parachute recovery system, as well as a ground control station. The flight data was transmitted to the ground station and recorded to onboard computer memory.
When a malfunction occurs during the flight, Woorisae II was designed to terminate the power flight for safety by shutting the propellant valve and deploying the recovery parachute. All the rocket subsystems and components were developed and supplied by domestic startup companies such as INOCOM and NARA SPACE TEHCNOLOGY.
Generally, sounding rockets reach an altitude beyond 30km and are widely used for testing rocket engines and reentry materials as well as for conducting microgravity experiments. Instruments for atmospheric science can also be installed to measure fine dust and high altitude atmosphere. Besides these science and technology purposes, most advanced spacefaring countries have sounding rocket programs to train and educate young people in the field of space science.
Professor Kwon said, “We will plan to launch upgraded rockets on November 4 and December 6 because we already received approval from the related agencies for using this land and airspace. Based on the experiment, we are planning to develop a cost-efficient small launch vehicle that is capable of delivering a cube satellite into Earth’s orbit.”
(Photos of preparing the rocket launch)
2018.10.29 View 13011 -
Participation in the 2018 Bio-Digital City Workshop in Paris
(A student make a presentatiion during the Bio-Digital City Workshop in Paris last month.)
KAIST students explored ideas for developing future cities during the 2018 Bio-Digital City Workshop held in Paris last month.
This international workshop hosted by Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie was held under the theme “Biomimicry, Digital City and Big Data.” During the workshop from July 10 to July 20, students teamed up with French counterparts to develop innovative urban design ideas. Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie is the largest science museum in Europe and is operated by Universcience, a specialized institute of science and technology in France.
Professor Seongju Chang from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor Jihyun Lee of the Graduate School of Culture Technology Students led the students group.
Participants presented their ideas and findings on new urban solutions that combine biomimetic systems and digital technology. Each student group analyzed a special natural ecosystem such as sand dunes, jellyfish communities, or mangrove forests and conducted research to extract algorithms for constructing sustainable urban building complexes based on the results. The extracted algorithm was used to conceive a sustainable building complex forming a part of the urban environment by applying it to the actual Parisian city segment given as the virtual site for the workshop.
Students from diverse background in both countries participated in this convergence workshop. KAIST students included Ph.D. candidate Hyung Min Cho, undergraduates Min-Woo Jeong, Seung-Hwan Cha, and Sang-Jun Park from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, undergraduate Kyeong-Keun Seo from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, JiWhan Jeong (Master’s course) from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Ph.D. candidate Bo-Yoon Zang from the Graduate School of Culture Technology. They teamed up with French students from diverse backgrounds, including Design/Science, Visual Design, Geography, Computer Science and Humanities and Social Science.
This workshop will serve as another opportunity to expand academic and human exchange efforts in the domain of smart and sustainable cities with Europe in the future as the first international cooperation activity of KAIST and the Paris La Villette Science Museum.
Professor Seong-Ju Chang who led the research group said, "We will continue to establish a cooperative relationship between KAIST and the European scientific community. This workshop is a good opportunity to demonstrate the competence of KAIST students and their scientific and technological excellence on the international stage.”
2018.08.01 View 13339 -
KAISTians Receive Future Ocean Science and Technology Awards
(From left: PhD candidates Minseok Kang and Junkeon Ahn)
PhD candidates Minseok Kang and Junkeon Ahn from the Department of Mechanical Engineering received Future Ocean Science and Technology Awards from the Korean Association of Ocean Science and Technology Societies (KAOSTS).
Since 2017, KAOSTS has conferred this award upon graduate students who have published outstanding papers on ocean science and technology in order to encourage young researchers in this area.
Kang published ‘Ship block assembly sequence planning considering productivity and welding deformation’ in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering in which he proposed an assembly sequence planning method for block assemblies that considers the geometric characteristics of blocks to determine feasible assembly sequences as well as assembly process and productivity factors.
Ahn published ‘Fuzzy-based FMEA of hybrid MCFC and gas turbine system for marine propulsion’ in Power Sources. In this research, he conducted a study proposing a fuzzy-based failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) for a hybrid molten carbonate fuel cell and gas turbine system for liquefied hydrogen tankers.
2018.06.15 View 9811