Seoul National University's College of Engineering (Dean Kookheon Char) announced on June 9 that a Professor Hyoun Jin Kim's team of researchers of the Department of Aerospace Engineering won the Best Paper Award in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (hereinafter, ICRA) held in Xi'an, China from May 30 (Sunday) to June 5 (Saturday).
 
ICRA is the world's largest robot conference held in the first half of every year, and Professor Hyoun Jin Kim's research team was nominated for the Best Student Paper Award in 2017 and the Paper Award on Multi-Robot Systems in 2020.
 
This time, the aerial manipulator related research, which consisted of Ph.D. student Dongjae Lee as the first author along with Hoseong Seo, Inkyu Jang, Seungjae Lee and Professor Hyoun Jin Kim as contributors,
was awarded in recognition of its excellence.
 
The aerial manipulator is a system with robotic arms attached to drones, and is a promising technology as aircraft can replace dangerous tasks in the air that are difficult for human or ground robots to work on. However, unlike ground robots, the stability of the aircraft itself can be lost while handling objects, making it difficult to perform tasks without human intervention.
 
This study was conducted under the support of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Science and ICT, and increased the possibility of use in rescue operations at disaster sites as aircraft can push or open doors of unknown weight or size.
 
"Since the 2001 accident when an Army helicopter crashed while installing a sculpture on the pylon of the Olympic Bridge, I have dreamed of a flying robot replacing such dangerous and difficult work," said Professor Hyoun Jin Kim. By using such technological advancements to improve society's awareness of their work environment, the researchers plan to continue to make such a dream a reality.