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Team KAIST Crowned Champion for their World’s Best Ironman, Winning their 2nd Consecutive Win at the Cyborg Olympics
< Group photo of our research team participating in the 3rd Cybathlon >
The Cybathlon is an international competition, which aims to help overcome disabilities through the use of robotics technology. KAIST researchers came in third, winning the bronze medal, at their 1st participation in 2016, won their first gold medal at the 2nd competition in 2020, and took back the gold medal at this year’s 3rd competition, successfully defending their champion title.
KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) announced on the 28th of October that the wearable robot ‘WalkON Suit F1’ developed by the joint research team of KAIST EXO-Lab, Move Lab, and Angel Robotics, led by Professor Kyoungchul Kong of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Chairman of Angel Robotics), won gold medal in Cybathlon 2024 held on the 27th.
< Seunghwan Kim, the Paraplegic Pilot of Team KAIST, cheering after completing all the missions >
Cybathlon is an international competition first held in Switzerland that challenges teams to develop assistive technologies with the purpose of overcoming disabilities, and is also called the Cyborg Olympics. Right after each competition, the missions for the next competition are announced, and research teams from around the world research and develop the right assistive technology for next four years to accomplish the given mission.
Aside from the Exoskeleton Race, competitions in a total of eight disciplines are held, including Arm Prosthesis Race, Leg Prosthesis Race, and Wheelchair Race. A total of 71 teams from 26 countries participated in the 3rd Cybathlon event. Professor Kyoungchul Kong’s research team participated in the Exoskeleton Race, the same discipline they took part in the previous competition.
The Exoskeleton Race is the highlight of the event that can be called the core of the Cybathlon. In the prosthetic arm or leg events, disabled athletes wearing traditional assistive devices instead of powered devices often win depending more on the ability of the athletes rather than the technology behind the tools.
However, the exoskeleton event requires individuals with paraplegic disability to walk completely dependent on the robotic device to perform various missions, so the technical difficulty and the dependence on robotics technology is high.
In fact, many teams gave up on participating after seeing the missions for this competition, and more than half of the research teams declared withdrawal during the developmental process. In the end, only six teams from Korea, Thailands, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands participated in the actual competition. Even the research team from the Swiss headquarters declared forfeiture midway as the competition date drew nearer.
< Cybathlon 2024 – Exoskeleton Race Mission Description >
The reason why many teams gave up in the exoskeleton discipline was because the difficulty of the missions was unusually high. Most research teams have the skills to make paraplegic athletes walk, but there were many other difficult tasks, such as making them walk without crutches or using both hands, while standing free on both legs on the exoskeleton, to cut a lump of sponge block, as in imitating food preparing process.
The reason why the difficulty of the missions increased like this is because Professor Kong's research team completed all the missions given to them too quickly in the last competition. In fact, in the last competition, there was even a question asked whether Kim Byeong-Uk (paraplegic) wearing the WalkON Suit F1 was really disabled.
Professor Kong's research team developed WalkON Suit F1 to successfully complete the missions. The number of motorized joints increased from six to twelve, and the output of the motor itself was more than doubled compared to the previous model that ran in the competition back in 2020. The 6-channel ground reaction force sensor on the foot measured the robot's balance 1,000 times per second to maintain balance. Cameras were installed to detect obstacles, and an AI board for implementation of AI neural network was also installed.
On top of the technologies required to complete the competition missions, a function was implemented that allows the users to wear the robot by themselves and dock on to it right from their wheelchair. In the process, all parts were domestically produced and all basic technologies were internalized. The outer design of the robot was done by Professor Hyunjoon Park of KAIST, and the harmony between people and robots was pursued.
In the end, the results of the competition were as expected. The only team that could successfully perform all of the mission tasks, which were originally designed to challenge Professor Kong's research team, was Professor Kong's team. They successfully completed missions such as moving by sidesteps between narrow chairs, moving boxes, walking freely unassisted by crutches, passing through a narrow door and closing it behind, and working on food preparation in the kitchen, recording 6 minutes and 41 seconds to complete all six tasks.
The Swiss and Thai teams that took 2nd and 3rd places were all given 10 minutes, but only were able to perform two missions, each earning twenty points. It was an unevenly matched race to begin with. The Cybathlon broadcast team was more surprised and interested in the performance of WalkON Suit F1 than in result of the race.
< Team KAIST’s Paraplegic Pilot Seunghwan Kim (left), and Professor Kyoungchul Kong (right) >
Researcher Jeongsu Park, the captain of Team KAIST, said, “We came into this competition thinking of it as a competition against ourselves to begin with and focused on showing the technological gap. Now, we are very happy and proud that our endeavors achieved such good result as well.” He added, “We plan to continue to showcase various functions of the WalkON Suit F1 that have not yet been publicly introduced.”
Researcher Seunghwan Kim, the paraplegic athlete of the team, said, “I am so touched that I was able to introduce the world’s best wearable robot technology of Korea with my own body.”
On a different note, Professor Kong’s research team has successfully commercialized wearable robots through Angel Robotics Co., Ltd. since the 2020 competition. In 2022, they began distributing “ANGEL LEGS M20,” the first wearable robot to be covered by health insurance, and as a result, Angel Robotics Co., Ltd. was successfully listed on KOSDAQ this March.
The various know-how and core technologies accumulated while preparing for this competition is to contribute to further development and propagation of wearable robots, provoking imagination to draw on the future of wearable robots and on how it may change our daily lives.
Final Match (Self-filmed): https://youtu.be/3ASAtvkiOhw
Final Match and Interview (Official Video): https://youtu.be/FSfxOTpDjSE
Final Match and Interview (Summary): https://youtu.be/Sb_vd5-3f_0
2024.10.28 View 1898 -
KAIST Introduces a Wearable Robot that Walks and Puts itself on to Disabled Persons
< Photo 1. WalkON Suit F1 - walking demonstration >
KAIST researchers have unveiled a new wearable robot developed for completely paralyzed persons that can walk to them so that the user can wear it right out of their wheelchairs without the help from others. Also, it was announced that Professor Kyoungchul Kong's team from KAIST will be participating in the wearable robot category of the 3rd Cybathlon, which is being held four years after the team’s gold medal win in 2020.
KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) announced this new version of the wearable robot for paraplegic people, WalkON Suit F1, by Professor Kyoungchul Kong (CEO and founder of Angel Robotics) of KAIST Department of Mechanical Engineering on the 24th of October.
< Photo 2. (From left) Professor Kyoungchul Kong of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Researcher Seunghwan Kim (the competing athlete), and PhD candidate Jeongsu Park (the leader of Team KAIST) >
WalkON Suit is a wearable robot for people suffering with paraplegic disabilities that the research team has been continuously researching since 2015. This robot targets to assist persons with American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale – A (complete paralysis) grade injury, the most severe level of paraplegia. Therefore, its development purpose is different from that of other rehabilitation therapy and muscle strength assisting robots currently being supplied nationally by Angel Robotics.
Professor Kong's research team first announced WalkON Suit 1 in 2016, and then introduced WalkON Suit 4 in 2020, increasing the walking speed to 3.2 km/h, achieving the normal walking speed of people with no disabilities. In addition, it demonstrated the ability to pass through obstacles such as narrow passages, doors, and stairs that can be encountered in daily life.
However, it had the same fundamental problem all wearable robots have, which is that they require the help of others to wear the robot. While you can walk without help from others once you are wearing the robot, you needed someone's help to put it on to begin with.
The newly released WalkON Suit F1 presented a technical solution to this fundamental problem. It applied a frontal-docking method instead of a rear-sitting method so that you can wear the robot right away without getting out of the wheelchair and into the robot, which would require help from others mid-transition.
< Photo 3. WalkON Suit F1 - suiting-up demonstration >
In addition, before wearing the robot, it can walk on its own like a humanoid robot and approaches the user. It is also implemented a function that actively controls the center of its weight against the pull of gravity so that it maintains balance without falling over even if the user pushes the robot otherwise. The outer design of the WalkON Suit F1, which crosses between a humanoid and a wearable robot, was done by Professor Hyunjoon Park of the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST.
The original function of the wearable robot has also been greatly improved. The performance of the balance control was improved to allow the free use of both hands in upright state, as well as the freedom to take several steps without a cane.
Technological advancements at the components level are also noteworthy. Through close collaboration with Angel Robotics, all core components of the robot, such as the motor, reducer, motor driver, and main circuit, have been domestically produced. The output density of the motor and reducer modules has been improved by about two folds (based on power per weight) compared to the research team's existing technology, and the control performance of the motor driver has been improved by about three times (based on frequency response speed) compared to the best overseas technology.
In particular, the embedded software technology of the motor driver has been significantly improved so that advanced motion control algorithms can be stably implemented without using expensive higher-level controllers. In addition, visual recognition system for obstacle detection and an AI board for neural network application have been installed.
< Figure 1. WalkON Suit F1 shape and main specifications >
Professor Kong explained, “WalkON Suit is the culmination of wearable robot technology for the disabled,” and added, “The numerous components, control, and module technologies derived from WalkON Suit are setting the standard for the entire wearable robot industry.”
Professor Kong’s research team revealed WalkON Suit F1 and announced that they will be participating in the 3rd Cybathlon, which is being held after four years since the last event. In this competition, which will be held on October 27, Professor Kong’s lab, the Exo Lab will be participating with Jeongsu Park, a Ph.D. Student, as the leader and Seunghwan Kim, the lab’s staff researcher with complete paralysis, as the competing athlete.
The difficulty of the missions in this competition has been significantly increased compared to the previous competition, and the number of missions has increased from six to ten. Some missions have been criticized for being overly challenging, going beyond the level that can be encountered in everyday life.
< Photo 4. Cybathlon stadium (Angel Robotics Asia Hub) >
Regarding this, the team leader Jeongsu Park expressed his ambition, saying, “Since we already won first place in the previous competition, our goal in this competition is to show the technological gap rather than competing for rankings.”
The Cybathlon is a cyborg Olympics held every four years in Switzerland. This competition will be held in a hybrid format, with some participants taking part in Switzerland while others broadcasting live from stadiums in their own country on October 27. Professor Kong's research team will be participating via live broadcast from the competition facilities installed in Angel Robotics' Advanced Research Institute (Planet Daejeon).
< Photo 5. Photo of Team KAIST participating in Cybathlon 2024 >
The demonstration video of WalkON Suit F1 can be viewed through the link below.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/@KyoungchulKong_EXO-Lab
2024.10.24 View 3435 -
KAIST and Merck Sign MOU to Boost Biotech Innovation
< (From left) KAIST President Kwang-Hyung Lee and Merck CEO Matthias Heinzel >
KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Merck Life Science (CEO Matthias Heinzel) on May 29 to foster innovation and technology creation in advanced biotechnology.
Since May of last year, the two institutions have been discussing multidimensional innovation programs and will now focus on industry-academia cooperation to tackle bioindustry challenges with this MOU as a foundation.
KAIST will conduct joint research projects in various advanced biotechnology fields, such as synthetic biology, mRNA, cell line engineering, and organoids, using the chemical and biological portfolios provided by Merck.
Additionally, KAIST will establish an Experience Lab in collaboration with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering. This lab will support the discovery and analysis of candidate substances in materials science and biology.
Programs to enhance researchers' capabilities will also be offered. Scholarships for graduate students and awards for professors will be implemented. Researchers will have opportunities to participate in global academic events and educational programs hosted by Merck, such as the Curious 2024 Future Insight Conference and the Innovation Cup.
M Ventures, a venture capital subsidiary of Merck Group, will collaborate with KAIST's startup institute to support technology commercialization and continue to develop their startup ecosystem.
The signing ceremony at KAIST's main campus in Daejeon was attended by the CEO of Merck Life Science and the President of KAIST along with representatives from both institutions.
Matthias Heinzel, a member of the Executive Board of Merck and CEO Life Science, said, “This agreement with KAIST is a significant step toward accelerating the development of the life science industry both in Korea and globally. Advancing life science research and fostering the next generation of scientists is essential for discovering new medicines to meet global health needs.”
President Kwang-Hyung Lee responded, “We are pleased to share a vision for scientific advancement with Merck, a leading global technology company. We anticipate that this partnership will strengthen the connection between Merck’s life science business and the global scientific community.”
In March, Merck, a global science and technology company with over 350 years of history, announced a plan to invest 430 billion KRW (€300 million) to build a bioprocessing center in Daejeon, where KAIST is located. This is Merck's largest investment in the Asia-Pacific region.
2024.05.30 View 2886 -
A KAIST Research Team Develops Diesel Reforming Catalyst Enabling Hydrogen Production for Future Mobile Fuel Cells
This catalyst capability allowing stable hydrogen production from commercial diesel is expected to be applied in mobile fuel cell systems in the future hydrogen economy
On August 16, a joint research team led by Professors Joongmyeon Bae and Kang Taek Lee of KAIST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Chan-Woo Lee of Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) announced the successful development of a highly active and durable reforming catalyst allowing hydrogen production from commercial diesel.
Fuel reforming is a hydrogen production technique that extracts hydrogen from hydrocarbons through catalytic reactions. Diesel, being a liquid fuel, has a high storage density for hydrogen and is easy to transport and store. There have therefore been continuous research efforts to apply hydrogel supply systems using diesel reformation in mobile fuel cells, such as for auxiliary power in heavy trucks or air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems in submarines.
However, diesel is a mixture of high hydrocarbons including long-chained paraffin, double-bonded olefin, and aromatic hydrocarbons with benzene groups, and it requires a highly active catalyst to effectively break them down. In addition, the catalyst must be extremely durable against caulking and sintering, as they are often the main causes of catalyst degradation. Such challenges have limited the use of diesel reformation technologies to date.
The joint research team successfully developed a highly active and durable diesel reforming catalyst through elution (a heat treatment method used to uniformly grow active metals retained in an oxide support as ions in the form of metal nanoparticles), forming alloy nanoparticles. The design was based on the fact that eluted nanoparticles strongly interact with the support, allowing a high degree of dispersion at high temperatures, and that producing an alloy from dissimilar metals can increase the performance of catalysts through a synergistic effect.
The research team introduced a solution combustion synthesis method to produce a multi-component catalyst with a trace amount of platinum (Pt) and ruthenium (Ru) penetrated into a ceria (CeO2) lattice, which is a structure commonly used as a support for catalysts in redox reactions. When exposed to a diesel reforming reaction environment, the catalyst induces Pt-Ru alloy nanoparticle formation upon Pt and Ru elution onto the support surface.
In addition to the catalyst analysis, the research team also succeeded in characterizing the behaviour of active metal elution and alloy formation from an energetic perspective using a density functional theory-based calculation. In a performance comparison test between the Pt-Ru alloy catalyst against existing single-metal catalysts, the reforming activity was shown to have improved, as it showed a 100% fuel conversion rate even at a low temperature (600oC, compared to the original 800oC). In a long-term durability test (800oC, 200 hours), the catalyst showed commercial stability by successfully producing hydrogen from commercial diesel without performance degradation.
The study was conducted by Ph.D. candidate Jaemyung Lee of KAIST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering as the first author. Ph.D. candidate Changho Yeon of KIER, Dr. Jiwoo Oh of KAIST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Gwangwoo Han of KIER, Ph.D. candidate Jeong Do Yoo of KAIST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Dr. Hyung Joong Yun of the Korea Basic Science Institute contributed as co-authors. Dr. Chan-Woo Lee of KIER and Professors Kang Taek Lee and Joongmyeon Bae of KAIST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering contributed as corresponding authors. The research was published in the online version of Applied Catalysis B: Environmental (IF 24.319, JCR 0.93%) on June 17, under the title “Highly Active and Stable Catalyst with Exsolved PtRu Alloy Nanoparticles for Hydrogen Production via Commercial Diesel Reforming”.
Professor Joongmyeon Bae said, “The fact that hydrogen can be stably produced from commercial diesel makes this a very meaningful achievement, and we look forward to this technology contributing to the active introduction of mobile fuel cell systems in the early hydrogen economy.” He added, “Our approach to catalyst design may be applied not only to reforming reactions, but also in various other fields.”
This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea through funding from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.
Figure. Schematic diagram of high-performance diesel reforming catalyst with eluted platinum-ruthenium alloy nanoparticles and long-term durability verification experiment results for commercial diesel reforming reaction
2022.09.07 View 8932 -
CXL-Based Memory Disaggregation Technology Opens Up a New Direction for Big Data Solution Frameworks
A KAIST team’s compute express link (CXL) provides new insights on memory disaggregation and ensures direct access and high-performance capabilities
A team from the Computer Architecture and Memory Systems Laboratory (CAMEL) at KAIST presented a new compute express link (CXL) solution whose directly accessible, and high-performance memory disaggregation opens new directions for big data memory processing. Professor Myoungsoo Jung said the team’s technology significantly improves performance compared to existing remote direct memory access (RDMA)-based memory disaggregation.
CXL is a peripheral component interconnect-express (PCIe)-based new dynamic multi-protocol made for efficiently utilizing memory devices and accelerators. Many enterprise data centers and memory vendors are paying attention to it as the next-generation multi-protocol for the era of big data.
Emerging big data applications such as machine learning, graph analytics, and in-memory databases require large memory capacities. However, scaling out the memory capacity via a prior memory interface like double data rate (DDR) is limited by the number of the central processing units (CPUs) and memory controllers. Therefore, memory disaggregation, which allows connecting a host to another host’s memory or memory nodes, has appeared.
RDMA is a way that a host can directly access another host’s memory via InfiniBand, the commonly used network protocol in data centers. Nowadays, most existing memory disaggregation technologies employ RDMA to get a large memory capacity. As a result, a host can share another host’s memory by transferring the data between local and remote memory.
Although RDMA-based memory disaggregation provides a large memory capacity to a host, two critical problems exist. First, scaling out the memory still needs an extra CPU to be added. Since passive memory such as dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), cannot operate by itself, it should be controlled by the CPU. Second, redundant data copies and software fabric interventions for RDMA-based memory disaggregation cause longer access latency. For example, remote memory access latency in RDMA-based memory disaggregation is multiple orders of magnitude longer than local memory access.
To address these issues, Professor Jung’s team developed the CXL-based memory disaggregation framework, including CXL-enabled customized CPUs, CXL devices, CXL switches, and CXL-aware operating system modules. The team’s CXL device is a pure passive and directly accessible memory node that contains multiple DRAM dual inline memory modules (DIMMs) and a CXL memory controller. Since the CXL memory controller supports the memory in the CXL device, a host can utilize the memory node without processor or software intervention. The team’s CXL switch enables scaling out a host’s memory capacity by hierarchically connecting multiple CXL devices to the CXL switch allowing more than hundreds of devices. Atop the switches and devices, the team’s CXL-enabled operating system removes redundant data copy and protocol conversion exhibited by conventional RDMA, which can significantly decrease access latency to the memory nodes.
In a test comparing loading 64B (cacheline) data from memory pooling devices, CXL-based memory disaggregation showed 8.2 times higher data load performance than RDMA-based memory disaggregation and even similar performance to local DRAM memory. In the team’s evaluations for a big data benchmark such as a machine learning-based test, CXL-based memory disaggregation technology also showed a maximum of 3.7 times higher performance than prior RDMA-based memory disaggregation technologies.
“Escaping from the conventional RDMA-based memory disaggregation, our CXL-based memory disaggregation framework can provide high scalability and performance for diverse datacenters and cloud service infrastructures,” said Professor Jung. He went on to stress, “Our CXL-based memory disaggregation research will bring about a new paradigm for memory solutions that will lead the era of big data.”
-Profile: Professor Myoungsoo Jung Computer Architecture and Memory Systems Laboratory (CAMEL)http://camelab.org School of Electrical EngineeringKAIST
2022.03.16 View 19694 -
Thermal Superconductor Lab Becomes the 7th Cross-Generation Collaborative Lab
The Thermal Superconductor Lab led by Senior Professor Sung Jin Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering will team up with Junior Professor Youngsuk Nam to develop next-generation superconductors. The two professor team was selected as the 7th Cross-Generation Collaborative Lab last week and will sustain the academic legacy of Professor Kim’s three decades of research on superconductors. The team will continue to develop thin, next-generation superconductors that carry super thermal conductivity using phase transition control technology and thin film packaging.
Thin-filmed, next-generation superconductors can be used in various high-temperature flexible electronic devices. The superconductors built inside of the semiconductor device packages will also be used for managing the low-powered but high-performance temperatures of semiconductor and electronic equipment.
Professor Kim said, “I am very pleased that my research, know-how, and knowledge from over 30 years of work will continue through the Cross-Generation Collaborative Lab system with Professor Nam. We will spare no effort to advance superconductor technology and play a part in KAIST leading global technology fields.” Junior Professor Nam also stressed that the team is excited to continue its research on crucial technology for managing the temperatures of semiconductors and other electronic equipment.
KAIST started this innovative research system in 2018, and in 2021 it established the steering committee to select new labs based on: originality, differentiation, and excellence; academic, social, economic impact; the urgency of cross-generation research; the senior professor’s academic excellence and international reputation; and the senior professor’s research vision. Selected labs receive 500 million KRW in research funding over five years.
2022.01.27 View 4677 -
Eco-Friendly Micro-Supercapacitors Using Fallen Leaves
Green micro-supercapacitors on a single leaf could easily be applied in wearable electronics, smart houses, and IoTs
A KAIST research team has developed graphene-inorganic-hybrid micro-supercapacitors made of fallen leaves using femtosecond laser direct writing. The rapid development of wearable electronics requires breakthrough innovations in flexible energy storage devices in which micro-supercapacitors have drawn a great deal of interest due to their high power density, long lifetimes, and short charging times. Recently, there has been an enormous increase in waste batteries owing to the growing demand and the shortened replacement cycle in consumer electronics. The safety and environmental issues involved in the collection, recycling, and processing of such waste batteries are creating a number of challenges.
Forests cover about 30 percent of the Earth’s surface and produce a huge amount of fallen leaves. This naturally occurring biomass comes in large quantities and is completely biodegradable, which makes it an attractive sustainable resource. Nevertheless, if the fallen leaves are left neglected instead of being used efficiently, they can contribute to fire hazards, air pollution, and global warming.
To solve both problems at once, a research team led by Professor Young-Jin Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Hana Yoon from the Korea Institute of Energy Research developed a novel technology that can create 3D porous graphene microelectrodes with high electrical conductivity by irradiating femtosecond laser pulses on the leaves in ambient air. This one-step fabrication does not require any additional materials or pre-treatment.
They showed that this technique could quickly and easily produce porous graphene electrodes at a low price, and demonstrated potential applications by fabricating graphene micro-supercapacitors to power an LED and an electronic watch. These results open up a new possibility for the mass production of flexible and green graphene-based electronic devices.
Professor Young-Jin Kim said, “Leaves create forest biomass that comes in unmanageable quantities, so using them for next-generation energy storage devices makes it possible for us to reuse waste resources, thereby establishing a virtuous cycle.”
This research was published in Advanced Functional Materials last month and was sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs, the Korea Forest Service, and the Korea Institute of Energy Research.
-Publication
Truong-Son Dinh Le, Yeong A. Lee, Han Ku Nam, Kyu Yeon Jang, Dongwook Yang, Byunggi Kim, Kanghoon Yim, Seung Woo Kim, Hana Yoon, and Young-jin Kim, “Green Flexible Graphene-Inorganic-Hybrid Micro-Supercapacitors Made of Fallen Leaves Enabled by Ultrafast Laser Pulses," December 05, 2021, Advanced Functional Materials (doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202107768)
-ProfileProfessor Young-Jin KimUltra-Precision Metrology and Manufacturing (UPM2) LaboratoryDepartment of Mechanical EngineeringKAIST
2022.01.27 View 9551 -
AI Light-Field Camera Reads 3D Facial Expressions
Machine-learned, light-field camera reads facial expressions from high-contrast illumination invariant 3D facial images
A joint research team led by Professors Ki-Hun Jeong and Doheon Lee from the KAIST Department of Bio and Brain Engineering reported the development of a technique for facial expression detection by merging near-infrared light-field camera techniques with artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Unlike a conventional camera, the light-field camera contains micro-lens arrays in front of the image sensor, which makes the camera small enough to fit into a smart phone, while allowing it to acquire the spatial and directional information of the light with a single shot. The technique has received attention as it can reconstruct images in a variety of ways including multi-views, refocusing, and 3D image acquisition, giving rise to many potential applications.
However, the optical crosstalk between shadows caused by external light sources in the environment and the micro-lens has limited existing light-field cameras from being able to provide accurate image contrast and 3D reconstruction.
The joint research team applied a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) in the near-IR range to stabilize the accuracy of 3D image reconstruction that previously depended on environmental light. When an external light source is shone on a face at 0-, 30-, and 60-degree angles, the light field camera reduces 54% of image reconstruction errors. Additionally, by inserting a light-absorbing layer for visible and near-IR wavelengths between the micro-lens arrays, the team could minimize optical crosstalk while increasing the image contrast by 2.1 times.
Through this technique, the team could overcome the limitations of existing light-field cameras and was able to develop their NIR-based light-field camera (NIR-LFC), optimized for the 3D image reconstruction of facial expressions. Using the NIR-LFC, the team acquired high-quality 3D reconstruction images of facial expressions expressing various emotions regardless of the lighting conditions of the surrounding environment.
The facial expressions in the acquired 3D images were distinguished through machine learning with an average of 85% accuracy – a statistically significant figure compared to when 2D images were used. Furthermore, by calculating the interdependency of distance information that varies with facial expression in 3D images, the team could identify the information a light-field camera utilizes to distinguish human expressions.
Professor Ki-Hun Jeong said, “The sub-miniature light-field camera developed by the research team has the potential to become the new platform to quantitatively analyze the facial expressions and emotions of humans.” To highlight the significance of this research, he added, “It could be applied in various fields including mobile healthcare, field diagnosis, social cognition, and human-machine interactions.”
This research was published in Advanced Intelligent Systems online on December 16, under the title, “Machine-Learned Light-field Camera that Reads Facial Expression from High-Contrast and Illumination Invariant 3D Facial Images.” This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
-Publication“Machine-learned light-field camera that reads fascial expression from high-contrast and illumination invariant 3D facial images,” Sang-In Bae, Sangyeon Lee, Jae-Myeong Kwon, Hyun-Kyung Kim. Kyung-Won Jang, Doheon Lee, Ki-Hun Jeong, Advanced Intelligent Systems, December 16, 2021 (doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202100182)
ProfileProfessor Ki-Hun JeongBiophotonic LaboratoryDepartment of Bio and Brain EngineeringKAIST
Professor Doheon LeeDepartment of Bio and Brain EngineeringKAIST
2022.01.21 View 9665 -
Face Detection in Untrained Deep Neural Networks
A KAIST team shows that primitive visual selectivity of faces can arise spontaneously in completely untrained deep neural networks
Researchers have found that higher visual cognitive functions can arise spontaneously in untrained neural networks. A KAIST research team led by Professor Se-Bum Paik from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has shown that visual selectivity of facial images can arise even in completely untrained deep neural networks.
This new finding has provided revelatory insights into mechanisms underlying the development of cognitive functions in both biological and artificial neural networks, also making a significant impact on our understanding of the origin of early brain functions before sensory experiences.
The study published in Nature Communications on December 16 demonstrates that neuronal activities selective to facial images are observed in randomly initialized deep neural networks in the complete absence of learning, and that they show the characteristics of those observed in biological brains.
The ability to identify and recognize faces is a crucial function for social behavior, and this ability is thought to originate from neuronal tuning at the single or multi-neuronal level. Neurons that selectively respond to faces are observed in young animals of various species, and this raises intense debate whether face-selective neurons can arise innately in the brain or if they require visual experience.
Using a model neural network that captures properties of the ventral stream of the visual cortex, the research team found that face-selectivity can emerge spontaneously from random feedforward wirings in untrained deep neural networks. The team showed that the character of this innate face-selectivity is comparable to that observed with face-selective neurons in the brain, and that this spontaneous neuronal tuning for faces enables the network to perform face detection tasks.
These results imply a possible scenario in which the random feedforward connections that develop in early, untrained networks may be sufficient for initializing primitive visual cognitive functions.
Professor Paik said, “Our findings suggest that innate cognitive functions can emerge spontaneously from the statistical complexity embedded in the hierarchical feedforward projection circuitry, even in the complete absence of learning”.
He continued, “Our results provide a broad conceptual advance as well as advanced insight into the mechanisms underlying the development of innate functions in both biological and artificial neural networks, which may unravel the mystery of the generation and evolution of intelligence.” This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and by the KAIST singularity research project.
-PublicationSeungdae Baek, Min Song, Jaeson Jang, Gwangsu Kim, and Se-Bum Baik, “Face detection in untrained deep neural network,” Nature Communications 12, 7328 on Dec.16, 2021
(https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27606-9)
-ProfileProfessor Se-Bum PaikVisual System and Neural Network LaboratoryProgram of Brain and Cognitive EngineeringDepartment of Bio and Brain EngineeringCollege of EngineeringKAIST
2021.12.21 View 8385 -
KAIST Entrepreneurial Partnership to Accelerate Startups and Venture Ecosystem
KAIST will launch the KAIST Entrepreneurial Partnership (KEP) program, which connects faculty members who own technology with those who want to launch startup.
The program encourages open innovation startups using strategies tailored to market-client demand requirements. This is also one of efforts to help realize ‘one startup per lab,’ initiated by President Kwang Hyung Lee’s new innovation strategy. KEP also aims to introduce the best technologies developing at KAIST to startups and to raise the success rate of technology commercialization.
The program will match KAIST faculty and student entrepreneur candidates with parties enrolled in the new Entrepreneur in Residence and Entrepreneurial Partner programs. Each team will be given a six-month test period with funding support.
KAIST will invite entrepreneurial experts from both technology and management fields to support the program participants. Around 30 experts with experience in developing new businesses, startups, and investments in large corporations or venture companies will be recruited as entrepreneurial partners. They will offer support for research and business development (R&BD), technology marketing, attracting venture investment from corporations, mergers and acquisitions, and business openings.
A survey showed that KAIST members who are interested in starting a business are experiencing difficulties finding an entrepreneurial expert (72.2%), with the complicated startup approval procedures (33.3%), and their lack of knowledge on entrepreneurship and funding (27.8%). The KEP program hopes to encourage KAIST faculty members and students who have well-developed business ideas and the appropriate technology but lack the capabilities to realize and develop them into a business.
Associate Vice President of Startups Young-Tae Kim said, “We will develop KEP into KAIST’s distinct entrepreneurial support system and produce exemplary outcomes of faculty and student startups. We will spread the startup DNA and lead the building of a virtuous cycle between entrepreneurship and the venture ecosystem.”
2021.10.14 View 4767 -
Defining the Hund Physics Landscape of Two-Orbital Systems
Researchers identify exotic metals in unexpected quantum systems
Electrons are ubiquitous among atoms, subatomic tokens of energy that can independently change how a system behaves—but they also can change each other. An international research collaboration found that collectively measuring electrons revealed unique and unanticipated findings. The researchers published their results on May 17 in Physical Review Letters.
“It is not feasible to obtain the solution just by tracing the behavior of each individual electron,” said paper author Myung Joon Han, professor of physics at KAIST. “Instead, one should describe or track all the entangled electrons at once. This requires a clever way of treating this entanglement.”
Professor Han and the researchers used a recently developed “many-particle” theory to account for the entangled nature of electrons in solids, which approximates how electrons locally interact with one another to predict their global activity.
Through this approach, the researchers examined systems with two orbitals — the space in which electrons can inhabit. They found that the electrons locked into parallel arrangements within atom sites in solids. This phenomenon, known as Hund’s coupling, results in a Hund’s metal. This metallic phase, which can give rise to such properties as superconductivity, was thought only to exist in three-orbital systems.
“Our finding overturns a conventional viewpoint that at least three orbitals are needed for Hund’s metallicity to emerge,” Professor Han said, noting that two-orbital systems have not been a focus of attention for many physicists. “In addition to this finding of a Hund’s metal, we identified various metallic regimes that can naturally occur in generic, correlated electron materials.”
The researchers found four different correlated metals. One stems from the proximity to a Mott insulator, a state of a solid material that should be conductive but actually prevents conduction due to how the electrons interact. The other three metals form as electrons align their magnetic moments — or phases of producing a magnetic field — at various distances from the Mott insulator. Beyond identifying the metal phases, the researchers also suggested classification criteria to define each metal phase in other systems.
“This research will help scientists better characterize and understand the deeper nature of so-called ‘strongly correlated materials,’ in which the standard theory of solids breaks down due to the presence of strong Coulomb interactions between electrons,” Professor Han said, referring to the force with which the electrons attract or repel each other. These interactions are not typically present in solid materials but appear in materials with metallic phases.
The revelation of metals in two-orbital systems and the ability to determine whole system electron behavior could lead to even more discoveries, according to Professor Han.
“This will ultimately enable us to manipulate and control a variety of electron correlation phenomena,” Professor Han said.
Co-authors include Siheon Ryee from KAIST and Sangkook Choi from the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States. Korea’s National Research Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, supported this work.
-PublicationSiheon Ryee, Myung Joon Han, and SangKook Choi, 2021.Hund Physics Landscape of Two-Orbital Systems, Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.206401
-ProfileProfessor Myung Joon HanDepartment of PhysicsCollege of Natural ScienceKAIST
2021.06.17 View 7065 -
KAIST Technology Value Tops in Commercialization Market
KAIST became the first Korean university to achieve 10.183 billion KRW in annual technology royalties, and was also selected as an ‘Institution of Outstanding Patent Quality Management’ and an ‘Institution of Outstanding Public Patent Technology Transfer’ for 2020.
KAIST earns its technology royalties through 56 technology transfer contracts. Following KAIST in the rankings were Seoul National University (SNU) in second place with 8.8 billion KRW from 87 contracts and Korea University (KU) in the third with 5.4 billion KRW from 133 contracts. The data shows the high value of KAIST-created technology in the market.
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) started to recognize the Institution of Outstanding Patent Quality Management this year to encourage profit-driven patent management at universities and public research institutes, and KAIST was selected as one of the four first recipients of this distinction.
In addition, KAIST was selected as an Institution of Outstanding Public Patent Technology Transfer, a title given by KIPO to three universities and public research institutes this year with outstanding achievements in technology transfers and commercialization to encourage patent utilization.
Director of the KAIST Institute of Technology Value Creation (ITVC) Professor Kyung-cheol Choi said that KAIST’s achievement in annual technology royalties and technology transfers and commercialization were prime examples of accelerating competitiveness in intellectual property through innovative R&D investment.
In April, KAIST expanded and reorganized its Industry-Academia Collaboration Team into the ITVC to support technology transfers and commercialization. Specialized organizations such as the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Center and Industrial Liaison Center have been established under the ITVC, and industry experts have been recruited as special professors focusing on industry-academia collaborations to enhance its specialized functions.
KAIST also operates an enterprise membership system and technology consulting system, aimed at sharing its outstanding intellectual property within domestic industries. In 2019, it secured a technology transfer commercialization fund of 1.2 billion KRW available for three years under KIPO’s Intellectual Property Profit Reinvestment Support Program (formerly the Korean Patent Gap Fund Creation Project).
This program was introduced to bridge the gap between the technology developed in universities and the level of technology required by industry. Under the program, bold investments are made in early-stage technologies at the research paper or experiment phase.
The program encourages enterprises to take active steps for the transfer of technologies by demonstrating their commercial potential through prototype production, testing and certification, and standard patent filing. KAIST is currently funding approximately 20 new technologies under this program as of July 2020.
KAIST’s outstanding intellectual property management has also received international recognition, with its selection as Asia’s leading institution in university R&D intellectual property at the Intellectual Property Business Congress (IPBC) Asia 2019 held in Tokyo, Japan last October.
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2020.08.18 View 8259