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U.S. and Korean Researchers Unveil Newest Research Team Member: Jaemi the Humanoid
- Project aims to enable humanoids to interact with people and their environment
June 1, 2009-- A Drexel University-led research team late last week unveiled the newest, most central member of its collaboration with a team of Korean researchers: Jaemi, a humanoid (HUBO). Jaemi HUBO embodies efforts to advance humanoid development and enhance the concept of human-robotic interaction. The project"s goal is to enable humanoids to interact with their environment, and enhancement plans include enabling the humanoid to move over rugged terrain, in unstructured environments and to interact socially with humans and handle objects.
The five-year project, funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) program, seeks transformative models to catalyze discovery through international research collaboration and train U.S. students and junior researchers to effectively think and work in global teams.
"The field of robotics is among the top 10 technology areas considered engines for economic growth. Korea understands this and is aggressively pursuing robotics. To stay competitive, the U.S. must do the same," said Mark Suskin, acting deputy director of NSF"s Office of International Science and Engineering. "NSF"s PIRE program and this robotics collaboration in particular, enable the U.S. to capitalize on research in other countries and remain competitive."
The PIRE research team is composed of researchers at The University of Pennsylvania, Colby College, Bryn Mawr College and Virginia Tech in the United States; and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea University and Seoul National University in Korea.
The team obtained a version of KAIST"s HUBO humanoid, which it named Jaemi HUBO and decided to house it at Drexel University. KAIST HUBO lab has become a model of cutting advance humanoid research by relatively small teams working on tight budgets.
KAIST excels in humanoid leg and body design, biped gait (walking, running, kicking), balance (modeling and control system design), and hardware integration. U.S. robotics researchers tend to enjoy an edge in locomotion over rugged, unstructured terrain; manipulation/grasping; cognition, perception and human-robot interaction; and vision (image, understanding, navigation).
This collaboration of American and Korean researchers will seek to draw on the expertise of each researcher and take Jaemi HUBO to the next level of development--that is, to improve Jaemi"s capabilities to navigate and manipulate objects and interact with people in unstructured environments. Such capabilities demand information technologies like cognition, perception and networking areas. Targeted enhancement features include a capability to move over rugged terrain and in unstructured environments and to handle objects and interact socially with humans.
Jaemi HUBO will also educate the American public, particularly young people, about the science of robotics. This education process began at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia on May 28, 2009, when Jaemi HUBO was unveiled and introduced to a crowded audience of children and a few adults. Neither male nor female,Jaemi connected with the children, boys and girls alike. Guided by a Drexel University graduate student, Jamei moved, spoke, danced, shook hands and lead the children in a game of Simon Says. Such access to Jaemi HUBO starkly contrasts with that afforded by other high-profile humanoids that are often protected trade secrets, largely inaccessible to the public.
Museum curators are pleased to have had Jaemi visit and entertain kids during the weekend. "At the Please Touch Museum, we promote learning through a variety of senses," said J. Willard Whitson,the museum"s vice president for exhibits and education. "A humanoid not only embodies our goal of building layers of knowledge in young people, but Jaemi helps all of us celebrate the playful side of technology."
Jaemi HUBO is now at its permanent home at Drexel University, from which travel and guest appearances may be arranged by appointment. Journalists interested in meeting and interviewing Jaemi HUBO and other research team members are encouraged to contact Lisa-Joy Zgorski at lisajoy@nsf.gov. (Press Release of U.S. National Science Foundation)
2009.06.19 View 13737 -
Prof. Cho's Team Awarded Best Paper Prize by IEEE
A team led by Prof. Seong-Hwan Cho of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, KAIST, won the 2009 Guillemin-Cauer Best Paper Award for their paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Journal last May, university authorities said on Thursday (June 4).
The team"s paper was entitled "A Time-based Bandpass ADC Using Time-Interleaved Voltage-Controlled Oscillators." The prize is given to a paper regarded as the best among about 350 papers published in the prestigious journal in the circuit theory area. Co-recipients of the award are Young-Gyu Yoon, Jae-Wook Kim and Tae-Kwang Jang. The award was presented at the annual 2009 International Symposium for Circuits and Systems in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 26.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE is an international non-profit, professional organization for the advancement of technology related to electricity. The New York-based organization has more than 365,000 members in about 150 countries making it the largest technical professional organization in the world.
2009.06.05 View 12776 -
KAIST Appoints Two CEOs for Promotion of Innovative Projects
KAIST has appointed chief executive officers (CEO) for the two companies KAIST has recently established to carry out two innovative "low-carbon, green growth projects" supported by the Korean government, university authorities said on Monday (June 2).
Chung-Sung Ahn, a former executive of Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., a top shipbuilder of the world, was appointed as the CEO of the Mobile Harbor Co., and Chung-Koo Lee, a former president of Hyundai Motor Co., as CEO of the On-Line Electric Car Co.
The two companies have been newly established for the commercial operation of the mobile harbor and on-line electric car projects that KAIST has been working on.
KAIST has developed a plan to power electric cars through re-charging strips embedded in roadways. The university has built a prototype on its campus for electric-powered golf carts and worked on designs that would power cars and buses.
The mobile harbor system is motivated by a growing need for an innovative container transport service system to effectively meet continuing increase in global container shipping volume, KAIST has developed a system that can unload containers from a containership to a floating harbor in the sea and deliver them to a land terminal and load cargoes in a reverse way.
The 71-year-old Ahn of the Mobile Harbor Co. served as the president of the Offshore & Engineering Division and the Industrial Plant & Engineering Division of Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. from 2003 to 2005. He completed Advanced Management Program (AMP) from Harvard Business School in 1990. Ahn obtained Ph.D. in ocean engineering from MIT in 1972, M.S. in naval architecture from MIT in 1969, M.S. in meteorology/oceanography from MIT in 1967 and B.S. in Maritime Science from Korea Maritime University in 1959.
Chung-Koo Lee, 64, served as president of Hyundai Motor Co. from 1992 to 2002 and as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology from 2001 to 2003.
2009.06.05 View 11250 -
KAIST Senior Wins Prizes at International Design Contests
Sung-Joon Kim, a senior at the Department of Industrial Design, KAIST, has recently won the highest prize at the iF Communication Design Award held in Hanover, Germany, university officials said on Monday (June 3).
The prizewinning work entitled "1/2 PROJECT" introduces a donation system in which a customer buys a bottle of drink, for example, containing only a half of its price value and donate the remaining half of the value. The work which was created as part of the Samsung Design Membership was also awarded a silver prize at the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) of the United States.
Award ceremonies of the two prizes are scheduled for in Muenchen in August and in Miami in September, respectively.
"The design project is aimed at making donation a part of everyday life by teaming up with big-name beverage makers," said Kim.
iF Communication Design Award and the IDEA are among the world"s three leading international design competitions. The other one is the Red Dot Design Award presented in Essen, Germany.
Early this year, Kim, leading a team, presented a portable life saving equipment called "Rescue Stick" to the two competitions and won high honors.
2009.06.05 View 13317 -
KAIST Signs Agreement for Industry-Academia Cooperation with KCC
KAIST signed an agreement for industry-academia cooperation with KCC, Korea"s leading supplier of building & industrial materials, on May 28, university sources said.
The agreement signed by KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh and Mong-Jin Chung, Chairman of the KCC Business Group, calls for KAIST and KCC to conduct joint research for the development of new technologies in nano science, new materials areas and interdisciplinary areas.
Under the agreement, KCC will invest 5 billion won into the KAIST Institute for the NanoCentury over the next five years.
KCC Chairman Chung said: "Through this industry-academia cooperation agreement, we are seeking to give part of our profits back to community . We hope this agreement to contribute to the development of core technologies of the future in the new materials field, and nurturing specialized manpower."
2009.05.28 View 12333 -
Prof. Chong Unveils New Human Movement Model
A KAIST research team headed by Prof. Song Chong of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has developed a new statistical model that simulates human mobility patterns, mimicking the way people move over the course of a day, a month or longer, university sources said on Tuesday (May 12).
The model, developed in collaboration with scientists at North Carolina State University, is the first to represent the regular movement patterns of humans using statistical data.
The model has a variety of potential uses, ranging from land use planning to public health studies on epidemic disease.
The researchers gave global positioning system (GPS) devices to approximately 100 volunteers at five locations in the U.S. and South Korea and tracked the participants" movements over time. By tracing the points where the study participants stopped, and their movement trajectories, researchers were able to determine patterns of mobility behavior.
The researchers were then able to emulate these fundamental statistical properties of human mobility into a model that could be used to represent the regular daily movement of humans. The model, called Self-similar Least Action Walk (SLAW), will have a wide array of practical applications.
The research, "SLAW: A Mobility Model for Human Walks," was presented on April 20 at the 28th IEEE Conference on Computer Communications in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The National Science Foundation of the U.S. funded the research.
2009.05.13 View 12874 -
KAIST, KHNP Sign MOU on Nuclear Technology Development
KAIST signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) on Wednesday (May 6) to upgrade cooperation between the two organizations in nuclear power technology development.
On hand at the signing ceremony at KAIST were KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, KHNP President Jong-Shin Kim and other related officials.
The agreement calls for increased efficiency and synergy effect in the development of nuclear power generation by KAIST and KHNP to gain greater competitiveness in the exportation of nuclear power technologies.
KHNP is responsible for the operation of all nuclear and hydraulic power plants in Korea which supply about 40 percent of the nation"s electric power demand. It is the largest among the six power generating subsidiaries that separated from Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) in April 2001.
2009.05.07 View 10987 -
Industrial Design Senior Wins Top Award at International Forum Design
Sung-Joon Kim, a senior at the Department of Industrial Design, KAIST, has won the highest award at the International Forum Design held in Hanover, Germany, university sources said on Monday (April 13).
At the design exhibition held in February under the theme of "life, live, work," Kim presented "Rescue Stick," a portable life saving equipment and "Recovery Arm Sling," a medical treatment device, in cooperation with three students from other Korean universities. Both entries were included among the 15 works selected as the top designs.
The design competition has been organized by iF International Forum Design, known as one of the world"s three leading design exhibitions.
Kim, leader of the team, received the prize at the awarding ceremony held in Nuremberg on March 24. The award-winning designs were on display at the design fair of the Altenpflege + Propflege, a nursing care exhibition, in the same city on March 24-26.
2009.04.15 View 10792 -
KAIST Prof. Park Selected as Winner of Clemson Award
Professor Tae-Gwan Park of the Department of Biological Sciences, KAIST, was chosen as the winner of the 2009 Clemson Award for Fundamental Research, university authorities said on Tuesday (April 7).
The award is the highest recognition of the Society for Biomaterials, an international organization of more than 3,000 members that promotes research in the field of biomaterials. Prof. Park is cited for his outstanding achievements in interdisciplinary research covering gene transferring, gene therapy and neogenesis. It is rare for a non-U.S. national to win the prize in the 36-year history of the award.
The award will be given to Professor Park at the Annual Meeting of the society which will be held in San Antonio, Texas, on April 22.
2009.04.09 View 11736 -
KAIST Dedicates Geocentrifuge Experiment Center
KAIST dedicated the KOCED Geo-Centrifuge Experiment Center for researches in monitoring natural disasters such as earthquake and embankment collapse through miniature simulation tests on Wednesday (April 9) after a two-year construction work.
The experiment center is part of the Korea Construction Engineering Development Collaboratory Program (KOCED) which has been sponsored by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs to build an infrastructure for construction engineering researches at a national level. The ministry plans to build a total of 5 similar centers nationwide by the end of the year.
On hand at the dedication ceremony were Jae-Choon Lee, President of the Korea Institute of Construction & Transportation Technology Evaluation and Planning, KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, and scores of experts and administration officials.
The construction of the five-story building on an area of about 3,328 square meters cost 8.4 billion won (US$6.3 million).
The center is expected to serve as a major laboratory in the field of geotechnical engineering. It is equipped with such state-of-the-art facilities as geocentrifuge, a useful tool for studying flow in unsaturated soil under well-controlled, repeatable conditions, a bidirectional shaking-table that can reproduce earthquake-like wave; and robots that can reproduce construction procedures by remote control.
Geocentrifuge experiment allows detecting ground and structure motions easily and rapidly by simulation tests. Thus, it is widely used for various geotechnical engineering researches such as evaluation of seismic safety, soft ground movement, slope stability analysis, etc. The causes of the embankment collapse in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were also revealed by the geocentrifuge experiment.
The geocentrifuge research facility is available for use by outside researchers, so scientists from other universities, research institutes and corporations can perform research and test their scientific and engineering hypotheses.
The center is divided into two sections, experiment building and research building. The experiment building is composed of a geocentrifuge laboratory, model-making rooms, workshops, a geotechnical engineering laboratory and specimen storehouse, while the research building has a control room, a video conference room, an electronic library and research rooms.
2009.04.09 View 12102 -
Respected Entrepreneur Chung Elected New Board Chairman of KAIST
Moon-Soul Chung, founder and former CEO of Mirae Corp. who is well known as the first-generation venture entrepreneur in Korea, was elected new chairman of the KAIST Board of Directors at the 193rd Regular Board Meeting held on March 20 in Seoul, school authorities announced Monday, March 23.
Born in 1938 in Imsil, North Jeolla Province, Chung graduated from the Oriental Philosophy Department of Won Kwang University. Chung founded Mirae Corp., a semiconductor equipment manufacturer, in 1983 and got his company listed on KOSDAQ and NASDAQ markets later. His business principles stressing transparency, integrity, and technology, earned the respect of Korean businesspeople.
In 2000, he suddenly announced retirement and handed over the presidency of his company to one of his managing directors. One year later, he donated 30 billion won to KAIST. It was by then the largest amount given by a single donor.
In 2007, he was awarded an honorary degree of doctor of engineering from KAIST. He formerly served as chairman of Venture Leaders Club, President CEO of Lycos Korea and chairman of the board of directors of Kookmin Bank.
2009.03.26 View 12447 -
Workshop on Biomedical IC to Be Held on March 26
KAIST will hold a workshop on "biomedical IC for future healthcare system" on March 26 at a lecture room of the School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. The workshop is organized by SEECS and the Korean Institute of Next Generation Computing.
At the workshop, a variety of new technologies expected to expedite the development of biomedical systems will be presented. KAIST Prof. Hoi-Jun Yoo will speak on the "body channel communication" using the human body as the signal transmission medium and Dr. Seung-Hwan Kim of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) on a wearable vital sign monitoring system.
Other subjects are CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) fully electronic biosensor for biomolecular detection to be presented by KAIST Prof. Gyu-Hyeong Cho; nerve interface and IC (integrated circuit) system design by KAIST Prof. Yoon-gi Nam; design of neural recording and stimulation IC using time-varying magnetic field by KAIST Prof. Seong-Hwan Cho; low power multi-core digital signal processor for hearing aid by Dong-Wook Kim, senior researcher at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology; and a non-contact cardiac sensor by KAIST Prof. Seung-Chul Hong.
With the advent of the ageing society, medical expenses of the elderly people are rapidly increasing. As a way to address the issue, interests are growing in "ubiquitous healthcare," a technology that uses a large number of environmental and patient sensors and actuators to monitor and improve patients’ physical and mental condition.
The upcoming workshop is the first academic event on biomedical integrated chips to be held in Korea. The workshop will provide a valuable opportunity for experts in biomedical area to get together and examine the present status of Korean biomedical area and discuss about its future, KAIST officials said.
2009.03.20 View 16616