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KAIST student wins Aerospace Student Papers Grand Prize
Dong-Il Yoo, a doctoral candidate under Professor Hyun-Chul Shim, at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, KAIST, has been awarded the Second Prize Award at the 11th Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) Paper Contest. The award ceremony was held on October 30th at the media conference room at the KINTEX ADEX 2013 Exhibition in Seoul.
Yoo"s paper, titled "A Study on Virtual Pursuit Point-based Autonomous Air Combat Guidance Law for UCAV," is highly regarded for originality and creativity. The Field Robotics Center at the KAIST Institute, where Yoo conducted his research, also received the first prize at the 7th KAI Paper Contest.
The KAI Paper Contest was first organized in 2003 to promote academic interest and advance research and development in aerospace engineering among university students.
The KAI Paper Contest is one of the most prestigious contests in Korea. It is sponsored by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Korean Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences, the Korea Aerospace Industries Association, and the Korea Civil Aviation Development Association.
Dong-Il Yoo (left) and Professor Hyun-Chul Shim (right)
2013.11.11 View 11055 -
Technology Developed to Control Light Scattering Using Holography
Published on May 29th Nature Scientific Reports online
Recently, a popular article demonstrated that an opaque glass becomes transparent as transparent tape is applied to the glass. The scientific principle is that light is less scattered as the rough surface of the opaque glass is filled by transparent tape, thereby making things behind the opaque glass look clearer.
Professor Yong-Keun Park from KAIST’s Department of Physics, in a joint research with MIT Spectroscopy Lab, has developed a technology to easily control light scattering using holography. Their results are published on Nature’s Scientific Reports May 29th online edition.
This technology allows us to see things behind visual obstructions such as cloud and smoke, or even human skin that is highly scattering, optically thick materials. The research team applied the holography technology that records both the direction and intensity of light, and controlled light scattering of obstacles lied between an observer and a target image. The team was able to retrieve the original image by recording the information of scattered light and reflecting the light precisely to the other side.This phenomenon is known as “phase conjugation” in physics. Professor Park’s team applied phase conjugation and digital holography to observe two-dimensional image behind a highly scattering wall. “This technology will be utilized in many fields of physics, optics, nanotechnology, medical science, and even military science,” said Professor Park. “This is different from what is commonly known as penetrating camera or invisible clothes.” He nevertheless drew the line at over-interpreting the technology, “Currently, the significance is on the development of the technology itself that allows us to accurately control the scattering of light."
Figure I. Observed Images
Figure II. Light Scattering Control
2013.07.19 View 7832 -
First Annual CanSat Idea Exhibition held
The Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology held the ‘CanSat’ Exhibition in order to increase interest and understanding of satellites in primary, secondary, and high school level students.
The exhibition, hosted by KAIST Satellite Research Center and funded by Korea Aerospace Institute, was held in SaeJeong City.
90 primary, secondary school teams, 57 high school teams, and 14 university teams submitted their applications for participation. Of these teams 20 primary, secondary school teams, 5 high school teams, and 5 university teams were selected after thorough document valuation and presentation assessment.
The 20 primary, secondary school teams participated in the science camp to gain firsthand experience in the construction and launch of a simple satellite system.
The high school and university teams were evaluated by the level of completion of the task given and the level of creativity involved.
The CanSat Exhibition has been held in aerospace powerhouses and this was the first time such an exhibition was held in Korea.
2012.08.21 View 8277 -
KAIST hosts the first Can Satellite (Cansat) competition
Figure: The cansat is sent up into the air using a balloon and then separated at a certain height. The cansat slowly descends and sends terrestrial observation or atmospheric information back to earth.
KAIST will host the first ever Cansat Competition Korea, in which students from different age groups can participate in building and testing the performance of their custom satellites.
The Satellite Technology Research Center (SaTReC) at KAIST announced that it will take applications for the Cansat Competition Korea until May 25th. A cansat is a can-sized educational satellite that contains the basic elements of a real satellite. It is fired up to a few hundred meters in the air using balloons or small rockets and then separated like a real satellite, collecting data and sending the information back to earth. Cansat competitions are regularly held in the United States or Europe, where they have advanced space development programs, but this is the first time this competition will be held in Korea.
The competition caters to different age groups through a cansat experience science camp for elementary and middle school students and a cansat competition for high school and college students.
The science camp will be held from August 7th to 9th at KAIST and Sejong City and will include satellite education, visits to space development centers (KAIST Satellite Technology Research Center and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute), hand-on experience with basic cansat kits, and other various programs.
The science camp will consist of a maximum of 20 teams comprised of students from fifth to ninth grade. Each team will have an advisory teacher and 3 to 4 students and can apply for the competition at no cost.
The cansat competition will test high school and college students on their personally designed and built can satellites along with the creativity of their mission and developmental outcome.
The preliminary review will choose a maximum of 15 teams, while the secondary review will select the 5 teams that will make the final competition based on their design presentation. On August 9th, these 5 teams will be evaluated on their technical ability, mission capacity and presentation skills. The winning team will be given the KAIST presidential award along with a trophy and prize money.
Doctor Park from KAIST SaTReC explained that countries with advanced space technology actively support cansat competitions to expand the base of the field. He emphasized Korea’s need for regular cansat competitions to actively promote potential space researchers.
More information on the competition can be found on the homepage (http://cansat.kaist.ac.kr) or at the KAIST SaTReC (042-350-8613~4)
2012.05.14 View 11452 -
Professor Moon Song Chun Appointed by 'Korean Red Cross
The Korean Red Cross appointed KAIST’s Professor Moon Song Chun (Graduate School of Techno Management).
Professor Moon participated in education and support services over the past 20 years like UNDP Expert, KOICA International Service Expert, Y2K Korea Representative (visit 20 third world countries around the world).
Professor Moon will start participation in Korean Red Cross in various parts of North Korea and for a period of two years.
2012.01.31 View 8004
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Fusion performing arts, called space musical, 'NARO' performed at KAIST
In commemoration of the 6th anniversary of the establishment of the Graduate School of Cultural Technology, KAIST organized an English musical show on space at the Auditorium on the 29th and 30th of September. The name of the musical was NARO.
The musical was funded by the ‘NaDa Center’ operated by KAIST’s Graduate School of Cultural Technology. The musical was created with participation from adolescents, which told a tale about a genius boy Naro’s journey in space.
The musical was composed of two parts, and the basic storyline was about Naro who conducts research based on space, and his friends went on a time travel to the constellation Scorpios; more specifically, it was a Korean traditional children’s story about a brother and sister who became the sun and the moon. Naro and his friends prevent the plot of Tyran, a villan, who plans on destroying the space and Earth by inducing a red giant star, Antares.
In preparation for the musical, NaDa Center selected 14 students ranging from elementary to high school students during March of 2011. The selected students met every Saturday and Sunday from March to September for practice; a gargantuan commitment.
The theme of the musical is space, the future, and hope, and it does not utilize any stage settings. Instead, it attempts the incorporation of high technology into the stage by using interactive video, laser art, and specially built props. In addition, the entire process from script to performance and advertisement was utilized as an education model to suggest a good fusion between science and technology and cultural arts.
The musical ‘NARO’ is a collective effort. Professor Won Kwan Yeon who pioneered the field of Cultural Technology directed the musical, Professor Koo Bon Chul was in charge of the script and music composition, acting was charged to Lee Min Ho, choreography was charged to Han Eun Kyung, astrological reference was charged to Park Seok Jae among other students in the Graduate School of Cultural Technology. Members of the KAIST Acting Club ‘Lee Bak Teo’, Jeong Soo Han, Son Sharon and graduate of Chung Nam National University with vocal music major Yang Su Ji also made appearances. The Space Musical ‘NARO’ was funded by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, and LG School of Multi Culture.
2011.10.10 View 9882 -
Professor Kang Suk Joong receives 'Korea Engineering Award.'
KAIST”s Professor Kang Suk Joong of the Department of Material Science and Engineering received ‘Korea Engineering Award’ from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and Korea Research Foundation. The award is given to those professors who have accomplished world class research and results.
Professor Kang has potentially redirected the direction of research in the field of the microstructure of materials by explaining the fundamental principle behind how the microstructure of a material that affects the physical properties of the polycrystalline structure and changes through processing. Professor Kang applied the results of his findings in the manufacture of new materials and made significant contributions to Korean Material Engineering Industry and was consequently awarded the award.
The ‘Korea Engineering Award’ was thought of in 1994 and a total of 24 recipients were recognized through the award in various fields like electronics, mechanics, chemistry, construction, etc. The recipient is awarded in addition the President’s award and 50million won as prize money.
The ceremony for ‘Korea Engineering Award’ and the ‘Young Scientist Award’ was held in Seoul Press Center Press Club on the 22nd of December at 3pm. The Minister of Education, Science and Technology (Lee Joo Ho), member of Board of Directors of the Korea Research Foundation (Kim Byoung Gook), Director of Korea Science and Technology Archive (Jeong Gil Seng), along with the recipients attended the ceremony.
In addition, Professor Kang was appointed as Distinguished Professor in March 2010 in recognition of his research accomplishments.
2011.01.18 View 10577 -
New Year's Message from President Nam-Pyo Suh
President Nam-Pyo Suh delivered a New Year’s message on January 3, 2011. While announcing plans to celebrate the 40th anniversary of KAIST throughout this year including a long-term development strategy for the university, Vision 2025, the president assessed the past accomplishments made in 2010 and laid out future prospects for 2011. The full text of his speech is attached below.
2011.01.05 View 8461
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Nature Photonics, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, released a paper written by a KAIST research team on the time-of-flight measurement.
Professor Seung-Woo Kim of the Mechanical Engineering Department, KAIST, and his research team published the result of their study on the measurement of 1 nanometer (nm) precision.
“The time-of-flight of light pulses has long been used as a direct measure of distance, but state-of-the-art measurement precision using conventional light pulses or microwaves peaks at only several hundreds of micrometers. Here, we improve the time-of-flight precision to the nanometer regime by timing femtosecond pulses through phase-locking control of the pulse repetition rate using the optical cross-correlation technique,” Professor Kim said.
According to the experiment conducted by the research team, “An Allan deviation of 117 nm in measuring a 700m distance in air at a sampling rate of 5 millisecond (ms) once the pulse repetition is phased-locked, which reduces to 7 nm as the averaging time increases to 1 second (s).”
When measuring an object located in a far distance, a laser beam is projected to the object, and the reflected light is analyzed; the light is then converted into an electric signal to calculate the distance. In so doing, Professor Kim said, the conventional method of measurement creates at least 1 mm of deviation.
He argues, “This enhanced capability is maintained at long range without periodic ambiguity, and is well suited to lidar applications. This method could also be applied to future space missions involving formation-flying satellites for synthetic aperture imaging and remote experiments related to general relativity theory."
Nature Photonics published the article online on August 8, 2010.
2010.08.18 View 10851 -
KAIST Opens "Bridge Program" for Prospective Freshmen from General High Schools
KAIST opened an academic study program to get the 150 prospective freshmen from general high schools ready for undergraduate course work at the tech university, university authorities said on Thursday (Sept. 3).
The "Bridge Program" is designed to offer online courses in mathematics, physics and chemistry to help students without sufficient knowledge in those subjects.
For the 2010 academic year, KAIST"s admission officers have chosen 150 prospective freshmen among a total of 651 students who had been recommended by their school principals. It is the first time that KAIST has alloted a certain number of freshman slots to applicants from general high schools.
The system was designed to prevent elite high school graduates from taking a disproportionately large share of admissions.
As a result, 91 high schools which never before had its student enter KAIST will have at least one enrolled in the university in the next academic year.
Among the selected 150 students, 132 applied for mathematics course, 125 for physics and 116 for chemistry.
2009.09.07 View 9580
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KAIST, Microsoft Research to Set up Research Collaboration Center
KAIST, Korea"s premier institution for science and technology research and education, and Microsoft Research (MSR), the research arm of Microsoft Corp, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a joint research collaboration center in Korea on Oct. 20.
The research collaboration center to be located at the KAIST campus in the Daedeok science and technology town 150 kilometers south of Seoul will be dedicated to promoting joint researches, curriculum innovation, talent fostering and academic exchange in the Asian region.
The MOU signing ceremony at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul was attended by President Nam-Pyo Suh and Vice President Soon-Heung Chang from KAIST, and Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer of Microsoft Corp, and Hsiao-Wuen Hon, Managing Director of MSR Asia from Microsoft.
“We are excited to be working so closely with Microsoft Research,” KAIST President Suh said. “This is the first of many alliances we hope to establish with the world’s industrial leaders that will enable us to resolve some of the toughest problems in computer science and accelerate the next generation of innovation in computing technology and its application in other scientific researches.”
Dr. Hon said: “For over 10 years, Microsoft Research has been committed to working with leading universities throughout Asia to spur computer science research and to strengthen Asia’s knowledge economies by helping foster their capabilities. The Microsoft-KAIST Research Collaboration Center demonstrates our continued efforts to strengthen relations with universities in Korea and build new partnerships with academia here.”
In the last three years, Microsoft Research and KAIST have engaged in close collaboration through research projects, student support programs, and various academic exchange activities. One of the major projects was to construct software development library specifically dedicated to systems biology. A number of excellent students from KAIST participated in the internship program at Microsoft Research in Beijing, China and Redmond, United States.
The establishment of the Microsoft-KAIST research collaboration center will bring the collaborative relations between KAIST and MSR to a new level. The center will provide a platform which unites the innovative minds of KAIST and Microsoft Research to develop technologies that will impact the way people live, learn, work, and play, a KAIST spokesman said.
2008.10.30 View 15991 -
KAIST Team Identifies Nano-scale Origin of Toughness in Rare Earth-added Silicon Carbide
A research team led by Prof. Do-Kyung Kim of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of KAIST has identified the nano-scale origin of the toughness in rare-earth doped silicon carbide (RE-SiC), university sources said on Monday (Oct. 6).
The research was conducted jointly with a U.S. team headed by Prof. R. O. Ritchie of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley.
The findings were carried in the online edition of Nano Letters published by the American Chemical Association.
Silicon carbide, a ceramic material known to be one of the hardest substances, are potential candidate materials for many ultrahigh-temperature structural applications. For example, if SiC, instead of metallic alloys, is used in gas-turbine engines for power generation and aerospace applications, operating temperatures of many hundred degrees higher can be obtained with a consequent dramatic increase in thermodynamic efficiency and reduced fuel consumption. However, the use of such ceramic materials has so far been severely limited since the origin of the toughness in RE-SiC remained unknown thus far.
In order to investigate the origin of the toughness in RE-SiC, the researchers attempted to examine the mechanistic nature of the cracking events, which they found to occur precisely along the interface between SiC grains and the nano-scale grain-boundary phase, by using ultrahigh-resolution transmission electron microscopy and atomic-scale spectroscopy. The research found that for optimal toughness, the relative elastic modulus across the grain-boundary phase and the interfacial fracture toughness are the most critical material parameters; both can be altered with appropriate choice of rare-earth elements.
In addition to identifying the nano-scale origin of the toughness in RE-SiC, the findings also contributed to precisely predicting how the use of various rare-earth elements lead to difference in toughness.
University sources said that the findings will significantly advance the date when RE-SiC will replace metallic alloys in gas-turbine engines for power generation and aerospace applications.
2008.10.08 View 13935