Engineering
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KAIST Holds the 2014 System on Chip (SoC) Robot War in August and October
Domestic and international competitions for robots with artificial intelligence are organized by Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo of Electrical Engineering.
KAIST will host two robot competitions this year: The Robot Integration Festival will be held in August at the Convention Center in Daejeon and the International Robot Contest in October at the Kintex in Ilsan. Participating robots are developed based on the System on Chip (SoC).
SoC robots refer to an autonomous robot that has a processor, a memory, peripheral devices, logic, and other system components combined on a single chip, which enables the robots to handle tasks and make decisions without human intervention.
The competitions include three entries: Taekwon Robot, HURO-competition, and SoC Drone which was added for the first time this year.
The Taekwon Robot involves a one-on-one sparring match, using a Korean traditional martial art, between two robots. Competitors score points based on front and side kicks, as well as punching. The HURO-competition pits robots in a competition to perform assignments such as hurdling, barricade clearing, crossing bridges, and overcoming other obstacles. The SoC Drone evaluates robots' capability to track miniature cars and navigate between buildings while in flight. The drone should have two cameras and a SoC brainboard equipped to offer autonomous, remote-controlled flight.
The director of the competitions, Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo of Electrical Engineering at KAIST, commented that with the integration of Korea’s world-class semiconductor technology, the competitions would lead to improvements in robotics engineering and unmanned aerial vehicle technology.
The competitions are open to anyone interested in SoC robots and unmanned aerial vehicles. For more information about the competitions, please visit http://www.socrobotwar.org . The application deadline is April 15, 2014.
2014.03.11 View 9752 -
Book Announcement: Sound Visualization and Manipulation
The movie
Gravity
won seven Oscar awards this year, one of which was for its outstanding 3D sound mixing, immersing viewers in the full experience of the troubled space expedition.
3D audio effects are generated by manipulating the sound produced by speakers, speaker-arrays, or headphones to place a virtual sound source at a desired location in 3D space such as behind, above, or below the listener's head.
Two professors from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST have recently published a book that explains two important technologies related to 3D sound effects: sound visualization and manipulation.
Professor Yang-Hann Kim, an eminent scholar in sound engineering, and Professor Jung-Woo Choi collaborated to write Sound Visualization and Manipulation (Wily 2013), which uniquely addresses the two most important problems in the field in a unified way.
The book introduces general concepts and theories and describes a number of techniques in sound visualization and manipulation, offering an interrelated approach to two very different topics: sound field visualization techniques based on microphone arrays and controlled sound field generation techniques using loudspeaker arrays.
The authors also display a solid understanding of the associated physical and mathematical concepts applied to solve the visualization and manipulation problems and provide extensive examples demonstrating the benefits and drawbacks of various applications, including beamforming and acoustic holography technology.
The book will be an excellent reference for graduate students, researchers, and professionals in acoustic engineering, as well as in audio and noise control system development.
For detailed descriptions of the book:
http://as.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118368479.html
2014.03.10 View 11661 -
K-Glass: Korea's Answer to Google Glass
Wall Street Journal (blog) published an
article on the K-Glass developed by Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo of Electrical
Engineering at KAIST. For the article, please go to the link below:
K-Glass: Korea’s Answer to Google Glass, March 5, 2014
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/05/meet-k-glass-koreas-answer-to-google-glass/
2014.03.07 View 7066 -
Seo-Eun Lee, an undergaruate student receives the Best Paper Award from Optical Society of Korea
Seo-Eun Lee, a student studying at KAIST’s Department of Biological Sciences, has won the Best Paper Award from Bio-Photonics Division at the 2014 Optical Society of Korea Winter Conference, held on 19th February at Daejeon Convention Center.
Only one outstanding paper per division is given an award among the total of 270 papers, and it is very unusual for an undergraduate student to win the award in the field that is not her major.
Lee has studied cell imaging using holography technology since June 2013 under the supervision of Professor Yong-Geun Park from the Department of Physics.
The Optical Society of Korea was founded in 1989, and as the largest academy in the field of optics in Korea, it holds academic presentations, seminars and lectures every year.
2014.03.06 View 9172 -
Spillover Phenomenon Identified Using Model Catalyst System
Researchers at KAIST have identified spillover phenomenon, which has remained controversial since its discovery in the early 1960s.
KAIST Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering’s Professor Min-Gi Choi and his team has explained the "spillover phenomenon," using their own model catalyst system where platinum is selectively located within the amorphous aluminosilicate.
The research results were published on the 25th February online edition of Nature Communications.
Spillover refers to a phenomenon that occurs when hydrogen atoms that have been activated on the surface of metals, such as platinum, move to the surface of the catalyst. It was predicted that this phenomenon can be used to design a catalyst with high activity and stability, and thus has been actively studied over the last 50 years.
However, many cases of the known catalysts involved competing reactions on the exposed metal surface, which made it impossible to directly identify the presence and formation mechanism of spillover.
The catalysts developed by the researchers at KAIST used platinum nanoparticles covered with aluminosilicate. This only allowed the hydrogen molecules to pass through and has effectively blocked the competing reactions, enabling the research team to study the spillover phenomenon.
Through various catalyst structure and reactivity analysis, as well as computer modeling, the team has discovered that Brönsted acid sites present on the aluminosilicate plays a crucial role in spillover phenomenon.
In addition, the spillover-based hydrogenation catalyst proposed by the research team showed very high hydrogenation and dehydrogenation activity. The ability of the catalyst to significantly inhibit unwanted hydrogenolysis reaction during the petrochemical processes also suggested a large industrial potential.
Professor Min-Gi Choi said, “This particular catalyst, which can trigger the reaction only by spillover phenomenon, can be properly designed to exceed the capacity of the conventional metal catalysts. The future goal is to make a catalyst with much higher activity and selectivity.”
The research was conducted through funds subsidized by SK Innovation and Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.
The senior research fellow of SK Innovation Seung-Hun Oh said, “SK Innovation will continue to develop a new commercial catalyst based on the technology from this research.”
Juh-Wan Lim and Hye-Yeong Shin led the research as joint first authors under supervision of Professor Min-Gi Choi and computer modeling works were conducted by KAIST EEWS (environment, energy, water, and sustainability) graduate school’s Professor Hyeong-Jun Kim.
2014.03.03 View 9341 -
Seung-Han Lee, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, receives the best paper award from ISQED 2014
Seung-Han
Lee, a doctoral candidate in the department of electrical engineering at KAIST,
received a Best Paper Award from the International Symposium on Quality
Electronic Design (ISQED), a high-profile international conference started in 2000 to promote innovation and quality in electronic and
engineering designs through inter- and multidisciplinary approaches. The
award ceremony will take place at the 2014 ISQED on March 3-5, 2014 at the Convention
Center in Santa Clara, CA, USA.
Professor
Chong-Min Kyung, an advisor to Seung-Han, expressed his excitement about his student's achievement.
“This is
the first time a Korean has ever received the best paper award at this academic
conference. It’s great news to our student as well as to KAIST.”
The topic
of Lee’s research paper was dynamic cache data management for minimizing the
energy consumption of three-dimensional multi-processor semiconductor chips.
2014.03.03 View 9167 -
Professor Yong-Tak Im of Mechanical Engineering Appointed as President of Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials
Yong-Tak Im, Professor of the Department of
Mechanical Engineering at KAIST, was sworn in on February 25, 2014 as
the 16th president of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials
(KIMM), a leading government-funded research institution in Korea. KIMM was
established in 1976 to contribute to the development of
Korea through the invention of source technology and technology transfer in
mechanical engineering.
President Im graduated from Seoul National
University, obtaining degrees of Bachelor of Science and Master’s in mechanical
engineering. He later studied at the University of California in Berkeley and
received a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering.
After working as an assistant professor of
the Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Ohio State University,
President Im joined KAIST as a professor of mechanical engineering in 1989.
President Im took many important posts at
KAIST, including Dean of Planning Office, Dean of External Affairs and Public
Relations Office, and Associate Vice President of Special Projects and
Institutional Relations, making a great addition to the university’s endeavors for
globalization.
Among the awards President Im received was the
William Johnson Award in 2007 presented by the Advances in Materials and
Processing Technologies, the Research Achievement Award in 2010 by the Global
Congress on Manufacturing and Management, and the Presidential Award in 2012 by
the Republic of Korea. He was also elected as the vice president of the Korean
Society of Mechanical Engineers, the largest association of professionals in
the mechanical engineering field in Korea.
President Im is currently a professor at
POSCO, an internationally known Korean steel company, and a member of the
Korean Academy of Science and Technology and the National Academy of
Engineering of Korea, respectively.
President Im will serve KIMM for three
years until February 24, 2017.
2014.02.25 View 9357 -
Phys.org: Researchers develop non-iridescent, structural, full-spectrum pigments for reflective displays
The latest research work by Professor Shin-Hyun Kim of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST on the “microcapsulation og photonic crystals using osmotic pressure” has been published by Phys.org, a leading web-based science, research and technology news. For the articles, please click the link below:February 20, 2014Researchers develop non-iridescent, structural, full-spectrum pigments for reflective displayshttp://phys.org/news/2014-02-non-iridescent-full-spectrum-pigments.html
2014.02.21 View 7505 -
KAIST to Hold "Data Science Workshop"
Discussion regarding the scientific utilization of data and its future possibilityThe upcoming 2nd Data Science Workshop is to be held at COEX, Seoul, on 27th February‘Big Data’ has attracted the explosion of interest in recent years. KAIST has arranged a platform of discussion for the utilization of data science and its possible usage in the future.The Department of Knowledge Services Engineering at KAIST is to hold the 2nd Knowledge Services Workshop under the topic of "Data Science for Industry" at COEX, Seoul, on 27th February.Data Science refers to using scientific approach to extract generalized knowledge from the data in order to find meaningful information.With the era of Big Data ahead, the amounts of data produced by the industry are rapidly increasing. The companies have recognized the significance of the data, however, the understanding of its systematic utilization is yet to be realized."Data Science Workshop" has been organized to discuss on how to create a new value using the data compiled by the industry. Lectures are to be given by four leading professionals in the field of data science, who are the professors from Department of Knowledge Services Engineering at KAIST. The head of the department, Mun-Yong Lee, said, “This workshop will be an opportunity for the companies that are considering introducing data science, as well as the students who are interested in the related field, to think about the possibility and future of data science.”Pre-registration for the workshop is currently open until 23rd February on the official website (http://kseworkshop.kaist.ac.kr).
2014.02.20 View 8336 -
KAIST developed an extremely low-powered, high-performance head-mounted display embedding an augmented reality chip
Walking around the streets searching for a place to eat will be no hassle when a head-mounted display (HMD) becomes affordable and ubiquitous. Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed K-Glass, a wearable, hands-free HMD that enables users to find restaurants while checking out their menus. If the user of K-Glass walks up to a restaurant and looks at the name of the restaurant, today’s menu and a 3D image of food pop up. The Glass can even show the number of tables available inside the restaurant. K-Glass makes this possible because of its built-in augmented reality (AR) processor. Unlike virtual reality which replaces the real world with a computer-simulated environment, AR incorporates digital data generated by the computer into the reality of a user. With the computer-made sensory inputs such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data, the user’s real and physical world becomes live and interactive. Augmentation takes place in real-time and in semantic context with surrounding environments, such as a menu list overlain on the signboard of a restaurant when the user passes by it, not an airplane flight schedule, which is irrelevant information, displayed. Most commonly, location-based or computer-vision services are used in order to generate AR effects. Location-based services activate motion sensors to identify the user’s surroundings, whereas computer-vision uses algorithms such as facial, pattern, and optical character recognition, or object and motion tracking to distinguish images and objects. Many of the current HMDs deliver augmented reality experiences employing location-based services by scanning the markers or barcodes printed on the back of objects. The AR system tracks the codes or markers to identify objects and then align them with virtual reality. However, this AR algorithm is difficult to use for the objects or spaces which do not have barcodes, QR codes, or markers, particularly those in outdoor environments and thus cannot be recognized. To solve this problem, Hoi-Jun Yoo, Professor of Electrical Engineering at KAIST and his team developed, for the first time in the world, an AR chip that works just like human vision. This processor is based on the Visual Attention Model (VAM) that duplicates the ability of human brain to process visual data. VAM, almost unconsciously or automatically, disentangles the most salient and relevant information about the environment in which human vision operates, thereby eliminating unnecessary data unless they must be processed. In return, the processor can dramatically speed up the computation of complex AR algorithms. The AR processor has a data processing network similar to that of a human brain’s central nervous system. When the human brain perceives visual data, different sets of neurons, all connected, work concurrently on each fragment of a decision-making process; one group’s work is relayed to other group of neurons for the next round of the process, which continues until a set of decider neurons determines the character of the data. Likewise, the artificial neural network allows parallel data processing, alleviating data congestion and reducing power consumption significantly. KAIST’s AR processor, which is produced using the 65 nm (nanometers) manufacturing process with the area of 32 mm2, delivers 1.22 TOPS (tera-operations per second) peak performance when running at 250 MHz and consumes 778 miliWatts on a 1.2V power supply. The ultra-low power processor shows 1.57 TOPS/W high efficiency rate of energy consumption under the real-time operation of 30fps/720p video camera, a 76% improvement in power conservation over other devices. The HMDs, available on the market including the Project Glass whose battery lasts only for two hours, have revealed so far poor performance. Professor Yoo said, “Our processor can work for long hours without sacrificing K-Glass’s high performance, an ideal mobile gadget or wearable computer, which users can wear for almost the whole day.” He further commented:“HMDs will become the next mobile device, eventually taking over smartphones. Their markets have been growing fast, and it’s really a matter of time before mobile users will eventually embrace an optical see-through HMD as part of their daily use. Through augmented reality, we will have richer, deeper, and more powerful reality in all aspects of our life from education, business, and entertainment to art and culture.” The KAIST team presented a research paper at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) held on February 9-13, 2014 in San Francisco, CA, which is entitled “1.22TOPS and 1.52mW/MHz Augmented Reality Multi-Core Processor with Neural Network NoC for HMD Applications.”Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSqY30FOu2s&feature=c4-overview&list=UUirZA3OFhxP4YFreIJkTtXw
2014.02.20 View 15542 -
Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo Appointed as the First Asian University Chairman of the ISSCC
Hoi-Jun Yoo, a professor of Electrical Engineering Department at KAIST, was chosen to be the first Asian University Chairman of the ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuits Conference) held in San Francisco, USA, from February 10 to 13, 2014. His term will last one year from April, 2014. Professor Yoo ranked tenth globally in thesis achievement over the 60-year history of the ISSCC. He ranked fourth globally over the last ten years and was the highest-ranked member from Asia over that time. He received an award for this remarkable achievement in 2012. ISSC is a world-renowned conference in the semiconductor field, where only 200 strictly selected papers are presented by semiconductor-related enterprises, research centers, and university representatives. Nicknamed the “The Olympics of the Semiconductor”, ISSCC runs for 4 days and hosts more than 3000 semiconductor engineers from around the world. It is most famous for the first CPU presentation by Intel and the first memory technology release of Samsung. Professor Yoo stated, “The Korean Semiconductor Engineering is leading the world’s technology instead of imitating it.” He aspires to devote himself to upgrading semiconductor engineering around the world.
2014.02.14 View 9117 -
A Molecular Switch Controlling Self-Assembly of Protein Nanotubes Discovered
International collaborative research among South Korea, United States, and Israel research institutionsThe key to the treatment of cancer and brain disease mechanism The molecular switch that controls the self-assembly structure of the protein nanotubes, which plays crucial role in cell division and intracellular transport of materials, has been discovered. KAIST Bio and Brain Engineering Department’s Professor Myeong-Cheol Choi and Professor Chae-Yeon Song conducted the research, in collaboration with the University of California in Santa Barbara, U.S., and Hebrew University in Israel. The findings of the research were published in Nature Materials on the 19th. Microtubules are tube shaped and composed of protein that plays a key role in cell division, cytoskeleton, and intercellular material transport and is only 25nm in diameter (1/100,000 thickness of a human hair). Conventionally, cancer treatment focused on disrupting the formation of microtubules to suppress the division of cancer cells. In addition Alzheimer’s is known to be caused by the diminishing of structural integrity of microtubules responsible for intercellular material transport which leads to failure in signal transfer. The research team utilized synchrotron x-ray scattering and transmission electron microscope to analyze the self assemble structure of protein nanotubes to subnanometer accuracy. As a result, the microtubules were found to assemble into 25nm thickness tubules by stacking protein blocks 4 x 5 x 8nm in dimension. In the process, the research team discovered the molecular switch that controls the shape of these protein blocks. In addition the research team was successful in creating a new protein tube structure. Professor Choi commented that they were successful in introducing a new paradigm that suggests the possibility of controlling the complex biological functions of human’s biological system with the simple use of physical principles. He commented further that it is anticipated that the findings will allow for the application of bio nanotubes in engineering and that this is a small step in finding the mechanism behind cancer treatment and neural diseases.
2014.02.03 View 9787