TEAM KAIST

Team KAIST consists of four university labs and two start-up companies centered around KAIST, a university in Republic of Korea. These institutes, specialized in autonomous vehicles of various domains, is led by Professor Dr. Jinwhan Kim, a faculty member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST.

The four university labs are MORIN (Mobile Robotics & Intelligence Lab), USRG (Unmanned Systems Research Group), VILab (Visual Intelligence Lab), and IAM (Institute for Air Mobility). MORIN is a research lab of KAIST that focuses on autonomous vehicle technologies applicable to ground, aerial, surface water, and underwater domains with an emphasis on maritime systems. Owning several test-bed boats with different platform structures, the team has abundant experience in both the theoretical and practical establishment of autonomy algorithms. USRG is a research lab of KAIST, researching various unmanned intelligent robot platforms such as drones, autonomous vehicles, trams, and delivery robots. The lab focuses on integrating Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Navigation, and Control technologies onto these platforms. VILab is a research lab of KAIST for computer vision (CV) and machine learning (ML). Especially, the lab’s focus on CV & ML applications is aligned with the development of robot autonomy on various robot platforms: drones, cars, and quadrupedal robots. IAM is a research institute at Cheongju University, achieving a number of R&D and industry-university collaboration results in the field of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and drones.

PABLO AIR and Avikus are start-up companies for multi-drone systems and autonomous ship navigation solutions, respectively. PABLO AIR researches and develops swarm flight technology for simultaneous multi-drone control. One of the most outstanding fruitions is that Hanwha signed an agreement to develop a firework drone show and drew PABLO AIR’s World Guinness Record for “Most UAVs launching fireworks simultaneously.” AVIKUS is a spinoff company of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group and develops technologies for maritime surface ships and leisure boats, looking forward to commercializing the best autonomous ship technology in the industry. The company holds two solutions named HiNAS(Hyundai intelligent Navigation Assistant System) and Avikus Autonomous Boat Solution, for large merchant vessels and mid-small sized boats, respectively.

Team KAIST’s work at the simulation phase of the MBZIRC competition is split into two phases: inspection and intervention. The overall aim of the solution is to inspect the vessels one by one and then intervene when the target vessel is detected. To ensure good performance, it was important to acquire robust solutions for path planning (to reduce the inspection time), vision-based vessel identification, and object retrieval using a drone or a manipulator. For greater work efficiency, Team KAIST formed 6 inner sub-groups to handle different parts of the solution, which are UC (USV Control), MP (Mission Planning), CN (Coastal Navigation), UM (USV Manipulator), Drn (Drone), and Per (Perception). With this effort, Team KAIST achieved high-accuracy inspection and prototype intervention solutions. As more developments follow, Team KAIST will continue to work towards successfully accomplishing the goal mission of the MBZIRC competition.