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KAIST Collaborating with U.S. Universities to Advance Humanoid Robotics
Hubo, a life-size walking bipedal humanoid robot, is perhaps the best-known character in Korea that KAIST has ever produced. It was shown to the government heads of the Asia-Pacific region during the APEC held in Busan, Korea, in 2005 and appeared at the hit concerts of the pop singer Jang-Hoon Kim. The humanoid robot is soon likely to catch the fancy of Americans as a U.S. government-funded project seeks to create a Hubo that can work and interact with people in collaboration with Korean scientists.
"We are going to give the brains to Hubo. (Japanese) Asimo can do only pre-programmed actions. We want to create a Hubo that can help people, interact with people," said Prof. Paul Oh of the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics at Drexel University in Philadelphia and leader of the five-year international project which was launched in November 2007.
The U.S.$2.5 million project is funded through the Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States. It brings together world-renowned experts in humanoid design and information technologies.
"Dr. Jun-Ho Oh"s lab at KAIST (that has created Hubo) is the world"s leader in humanoid design and the U.S. has advanced technologies in the areas such as artificial intelligence, mechanical learning and robot vision. Combining the strengths of the two countries can create a synergy effect and develop a more advanced humanoid robot," said Paul Oh. He is currently serving as Program Director of Robotics of the NSF which is overseeing robotics research (non-military) in the U.S. consisting over 150 robotics faculty.
Paul Oh"s research team consists of experts from five U.S. universities -- Drexel, Bryn Mawr College, Colby College, the University of Pennsylvania and Virginia Tech -- and KAIST.
Leading a delegation of six professors and eight students, Dr. Paul Oh made a two-day visit to KAIST on Nov. 18-19 to review the progress of the project and have a technical meeting with participants.
"The U.S. universities participating in this program are scattered across the nation. So we decided to have a technical meeting here in Korea," he said.
Asked the reason why he chose KAIST as a partner for the program, Dr. Oh said that KAIST is willing to open Hugo to international researchers, whereas in Japan only Honda engineers are allowed to touch Asimo, which is a humanoid robot created by Honda Motor Company.
The project is to establish no barrier for roboticists anywhere in the world to pursue the humanoid research; a suite of humanoid platforms will be available for researchers to develop and advance capabilities like locomotion and human-robot interaction.
The team has been initially involved in development of three tools, all of which are based on the Hubo platform, in order to kick-start humanoid research in the U.S. They are the Mini-Hubo (a small, light-weight and affordable humanoid purchasable at the price lower than $8,000), On-Line Hubo (a program to operate Hubo online) and Virtual Hubo (a simulation program to do researches in cyberspace). As the first outcome of the project, the Mini-Hubo is expected to be released in the U.S. around next April.
Another important purpose of the PIRE program is to seek transformative models to train scientists and engineers to effectively work in global multi-disciplined design teams. To this end, an aggregate number of 20 students from U.S. universities are to stay at the KAIST during the next five years, with two students taking turns on a six-month term.
"I was really amazed how much work is done with small funding here. This is really an excellent example to learn," said Roy Gross, an undergraduate from Drexel who has been staying at Prof. Oh"s Lab for the past three months.
2008.11.21 View 19108 -
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 17852 -
SoC Robot War 2008 Wraps Up 4-Day Competition
The 2008 Intelligent SoC Robot War hosted by KAIST wrapped up its four-day competition on Sunday, Oct. 19, at the Indian Hall of Convention & Exhibition Center (COEX) in southern Seoul.
At the annual contest featuring battles between mechanical robots utilizing System on Chip (SoC) technology, Seoul National University of Technology"s "Fiperion" won top award in the Tank Robot category and Chungbuk National University"s "What is FPGA?" was the champion in the Taekwon Robot category.
In the Tank Robot contest, robots in the form of tanks engaged in duels with laser beams through visual recognition, wireless communication, and audio recognition. On the other hand, the Taekwon Robot contest was a hand-to-hand fight. The robots had to be capable of recognizing the opponent, defending and attacking without external control.
A total of 20 teams in the Tank Robot category and 10 teams in the Taekwon Robot category passed through the preliminary assessments and vied in the final competition. The annual event started seven years ago.
The preliminary assessments conducted between July and September drew a total of 150 teams nationwide. Any team consisting of more than two people and under six undergraduate or graduate students are eligible to take part in the competition.
This year"s event was co-sponsored by Altera, a U.S.-based leading semiconductor manufacturer. Each of the two top-award winning teams received U.S.$1,000 in cash and 10 pieces of DE2 board which is worth $2,700.
2008.10.22 View 11607 -
KAIST, KRIBB Agree to Cooperate in Research of Convergence Technologies
Oct. 15, 2008 -- KAIST and Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) have agreed to cooperate in the research of convergence fields of biotechnology, information technology and nanotechnology.
To this end, the two institutions concluded a memorandum of understanding to create a new academia-institute cooperative model in the convergence fields on Oct. 15 in Seoul, with KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, KRIBB Director Young-Hoon Park and Vice Minister of Education, Science and Technology Jong-Koo Park in attendance.
Under the agreement, the two institutions will set up the tentatively-named KAIST-KRIBB BINT Convergence Institute for the development of technologies and nurturing skilled manpower in the convergence fields.
The partnership of the two institutions is expected to bring broad-based cooperation opportunities and create a massive synergy effect by combining their resources and infrastructure for the development of convergence technologies, KAIST officials said..
The proposed institute is also designed to build a world-class research hub in systems biotechnology by combining strengths of the two institutions with initiatives to achieve the Korean government"s new vision for "low carbon, green growth."
The institute will also serve as a base for domestic brain convergence by concentrating the nation"s research capacities in genetics and brain technology.
KAIST also signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in researches in Oriental medicine with three institutions, KRIBB, Daegu Hanny University and Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine.
The agreement calls for the four institutions to conduct joint researches in traditional sciences and Oriental medicine based on systems biology, develop manpower in related fields and share academic and research information.
The agreement is expected to provide impetus to reinforcing competitiveness in compound and convergence technologies and discover new properties in Oriental medicine, according to KAIST authorities.
2008.10.16 View 16950 -
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 15982 -
KAIST Professor Finds Paradox in Human Behaviors on Road
-Strange as it might seem, closing roads can cut delays
A new route opened to ease traffic jam, but commuting time has not been reduced.Conversely, motorists reached their destinations in shorter times after a big street was closed. These paradoxical phenomena are the result of human selfishness, according to recent findings of a research team led by a KAIST physics professor.
Prof. Ha-Woong Jeong, 40, at the Department of Physics, conducted a joint research with a team from Santa Fe Institute of the U.S. to analyze the behaviors of drivers in Boston, New York and London. Their study found that when individual drivers, fed with traffic information via various kinds of media, try to choose the quickest route, it can cause delays for others and even worsen congestion.
Prof. Jeong and his group"s study will be published in the Sept. 18 edition of the authoritative Physical Review Letters. The London-based Economist magazine introduced Prof. Jeong"s finding in its latest edition.
Prof. Jeong, a pioneer in the study of "complex system," has published more than 70 research papers in the world"s leading science journals, including Nature, PNAS and Physical Review Letters. "Initially, my study was to reduce annoyance from traffic jam during rush hours," Prof. Jeong said. "Ultimately, it is purposed to eliminate inefficiency located in various corners of social activities, with the help of the network science."
The Economist article read (in part):
"...when individual drivers each try to choose the quickest route it can cause delays for others and even increase hold-ups in the entire road network.
"The physicists give a simplified example of how this can happen: trying to reach a destination either by using a short but narrow bridge or a longer but wide motorway. In their hypothetical case, the combined travel time of all the drivers is minimized if half use the bridge and half the motorway. But that is not what happens. Some drivers will switch to the bridge to shorten their commute, but as the traffic builds up there the motorway starts to look like a better bet, so some switch back. Eventually the traffic flow on the two routes settles into what game theory calls a Nash equilibrium, named after John Nash, the mathematician who described it. This is the point where no individual driver could arrive any faster by switching routes.
"The researchers looked at how this equilibrium could arise if travelling across Boston from Harvard Square to Boston Common. They analysed 246 different links in the road network that could be used for the journey and calculated traffic flows at different volumes to produce what they call a “price of anarchy” (POA). This is the ratio of the total cost of the Nash equilibrium to the total cost of an optimal traffic flow directed by an omniscient traffic controller. In Boston they found that at high traffic levels drivers face a POA which results in journey times 30% longer than if motorists were co-ordinated into an optimal traffic flow. Much the same thing was found in London (a POA of up to 24% for journeys between Borough and Farringdon Underground stations) and New York (a POA of up to 28% from Washington Market Park to Queens Midtown Tunnel).
"Modifying the road network could reduce delays. And contrary to popular belief, a simple way to do that might be to close certain roads. This is known as Braess’s paradox, after another mathematician, Dietrich Braess, who found that adding extra capacity to a network can sometimes reduce its overall efficiency.
"In Boston the group looked to see if the paradox could be created by closing any of the 246 links. In 240 cases their analysis showed that a closure increased traffic problems. But closing any one of the remaining six streets reduced the POA of the new Nash equilibrium. Much the same thing was found in London and New York. More work needs to be done to understand these effects, say the researchers. But even so, planners should note that there is now evidence that even a well intentioned new road may make traffic jams worse."
2008.09.18 View 14900 -
KAIST, KARI to Conduct Joint Research, Exchange Tech Manpower
KAIST and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) have agreed to conduct joint researches and exchange technical personnel in order to spur research activities on artificial satellite and other aerospace technology, KAIST announced Wednesday, Sept. 17.
An MOU was signed in a ceremony at the KARI Tuesday, attended by senior officials of the two institutions which both are located in the Daedeok Technopolis in Daejeon City.
Researchers from KARI will participate in KAIST"s interdisciplinary project of "Space Exploratory Engineering" and the two organizations will also jointly take part in the International Lunar Network (ILN), an international moon exploration program, to accelerate development of space technology in Korea.
As a result of the tieup, Dr. Lee So-yeon, Korea"s first astronaut who lived in space for a week aboard a Russian spacecraft this year, will be able to teach and conduct research at KAIST as an adjunct professor. Lee earned her doctorate from KAIST.
2008.09.17 View 15488 -
International Workshop on Flexible Displays Held on Aug. 21-22
An international workshop on flexible displays will be held at KAIST on Aug. 21-22.
The workshop organized by Center for Advanced Flexible Display Convergence (CAFDC) in KAIST is designed to share ideas on the latest research developments and explore future trends in organic displays. Organic displays made from organic light-emitting diode (OLED) materials have recently made a real impact in consumer electronics and emerged as one of the most important technologies in the development of next-generation flexible displays.
"The workshop is expected to provide an important opportunity to showcase latest technological developments using organic light-emitting diode and examine them from the perspectives of the next-generation flexible display," said Dr. Kyung-Cheol Choi, KAIST professor of electrical engineering and computer science who heads the CAFDC.
The event will feature some of the world-renowned scholars in organic display including Prof. Stephen R. Forrest of the University of Michigan, Prof. Bernard Kippelen of Georgia Tech, and Prof. Takao Someya of the University of Tokyo, as theme presenters. It will also draw a slew of domestic scholars in the industry and academia.
2008.08.22 View 16024
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Storing Stably Hydrogen Atoms in Icy Materials Discovered
KAIST, Aug. 8, 2008 -- A KAIST research team led by Prof. Huen Lee of the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering has discovered that icy organic hydrates, which contain small cages that can trap guest molecules, can be used to create and trap hydrogen atoms at higher temperatures.
The properties and reactions of single hydrogen atoms are of great scientific interest because of their inherent quantum mechanical behavior; experimentally, they can be generated and stabilized at very low temperatures (4 K) by high-energy irradiation of solid molecular hydrogen.
The finding was reported in the journal of American Chemical Society and featured in the "Editor"s Choice" in the July 11 issue of Science as a recent research highlight.
Hydrogen is a clean and sustainable form of energy that can be used in mobile and stationary applications. Hydrogen has the potential to solve several major challenges today: depletion of fossil fuels, poor air quality, and green house gas emissions.
However, the trapping of hydrogen atoms in crystalline solid matrix has never been attempted mainly because of experimental difficulties in identifying the generated hydrogen atoms with either spectroscopic or microscopic technique.
"To overcome the barriers and limitations of the existing storage approaches, we have continuously attempted to find the new hydrogen storage media such as icy powders and other related inclusion compounds," said Prof. Lee
The discovery follows the breakthrough concept Prof. Lee"s research team proposed in Nature in 2005 to use pure ice to capture and store hydrogen molecules. At moderate temperature and pressure conditions small guest molecules are entrapped in pure ice powders to form the mixed icy hydrate materials.
"Stable existence of single hydrogen molecule/radical in icy crystalline matrices may offer significant advantages in exploring hydrogen as a quantum medium because icy hydrogen hydrates can be formed at milder conditions when compared with pure solid hydrogen, which requires the ultra low temperature of 4.2 K," said Prof. Lee.
The novel design and synthesis of ionic and radicalized icy hydrates are expected to open a new field for inclusion chemistry and ice-based science and technology. Specifically, the fact that hydrogen atoms can be stably stored in icy materials might provide versatile and practical applications to energy devices including fuel cells, ice-induced reactions, and novel energy storage process, according to the KAIST professor.
2008.08.07 View 14180 -
KAIST Professors Article Featured as Cover Thesis of Biotechnology Journal
An article authored by a research team of Prof. Sang-yup Lee at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Dr. Jin-Hwan Park at the KAIST Institute for the BioCentury has been featured as the cover thesis of the August 2008 issue of Trends in Biotechnology.
The paper, titled "General strategy for strain improvement by means of systems metabolic engineering," focuses on the application of systems biology for the development of strains and illustrates future prospects. Trends in Biotechnology, published by Cell Press, is one of the most prestigious review journals in the field.
Jin-Hwan Park, the primary author of the research thesis, said that the KAIST team"s research work was expected to provide substantial help to researchers involved in biotechnology industry.
The strategy has been established on the basis of the experiences gained in the actual microbial production process using the systems biology methods which his research team has recently worked on, Prof. Park said.
2008.07.24 View 16128
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KAIST Professor Named International Research Grant Reviewer
Prof. Kwang-Hyun Cho of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, was appointed as a research grant review committee member of the international Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) for 2008-2009, university authorities reported.
The HFSP is a funding agency that supports international collaboration in interdisciplinary, basic research in the life sciences. It was initiated in 1989 by G7 countries as the sole funding program for international researches in neuroscience and molecular biology. The HFSP now has a membership of 35 countries and Korea joined the program in 2004. Prof. Cho will be responsible for reviewing grant applications in the field of systems biology.
Prof. Cho received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from KAIST in 1993, 1995, and 1998, respectively. He has been working as a director of the KAIST Institute for the BioCentury and KAIST"s Laboratory for Systems Biology and Bio-Inspired Engineering. He has been serving on editorial advisory boards of various international science journals, including Systems and Synthetic Biology (Springer, Netherlands, from 2006), BMC Systems Biology (BMC, London, U.K., from 2007) and Gene Regulation and Systems Biology (Libertas Academica, New Zealand, from 2007).
He is a senior member of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) affiliated with the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE). His research interests cover the areas of systems science with bio-medical applications, especially systems biology and bio-inspired engineering based on molecular systems biology.
2008.07.18 View 19695 -
KAIST Opens M&S Technology Research Center
KAIST held an opening ceremony for a new defense research center focusing on modelling & simulation located at its main campus in Daejeon on Thursday (June 19).
The opening of the M&S Technology Research Center is aimed at developing technologies and processes to test, practice and operate newly-developed precision and micro weapons systems in virtual space. The center will be supported by two state-run defense agencies, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration and the Korean Agency for Defense Development.
The new research center is expected to receive a total of 11.5 billion won (US$11.2 million) research grants from the state for the next eight years until 2016. The center will be involved in the development of sophisticated, complex and inter-related weapons system and training research personnel in the specialized area.
The research center will undertake a total of 21 specific projects in collaboration with seven other universities in Korea. Also joining the projects are such overseas institutions as Georgia Institute of Technology and the U.S. Naval Post-Graduate School, and private defense solution providers including Posdata, Samsung Thales and LIG Nex 1.
The opening of the research center comes at a time when modelling and simulation gain growing importance as today"s armies employ more sophisticated, complex and inter-related. weapons systems and equipment than ever before.
Tae-Uk Lee, director of the research center said: "The opening of the center will spur development of operational technologies of precision and micro weapons system on our own, departing from dependence on advanced countries."
2008.06.19 View 17457