Carnegie Mellon University

a group of visitors learn about a robotics project on display in the high bay

April 25, 2022

Kickstarting Collaboration with Korea Electronics Technology Institute

On April 25, 2022, Carnegie Mellon University recognized the formal beginning of a long-term relationship with Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) through the National Robotics Engineering Center. The partnership between CMU’s NREC, KETI, and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology is focused on technology cooperation for the promotion of international joint research and development projects among CMU and Korean companies, universities, and R&D institutes. 

The initial objective of this collaboration is to develop core technology in navigation for autonomous driving with a concentration on establishing secure environmental awareness and situation judgement using multi-sensor fusion. Carnegie Mellon is the birthplace of autonomous driving technology, and the self-driving automotive industry continues to flourish in the Pittsburgh region.

"NREC’s partnership with KETI reinforces the common commitment of both organizations toward scientific and technological advancement in autonomy research." — Dr. Jean Oh

Led by Dr. Jean Oh, Associate Research Professor, a team of researchers and engineers at NREC and in the Robotics Institute (RI) will focus on developing unique algorithms to address specific technical challenges associated with dynamic environments, taking various social factors into consideration for multi-object detection, tracking, and planning. The majority of existing approaches model other moving agents such as vehicles or pedestrians as dynamic obstacles to avoid by passively reacting to their predicted trajectories. The proposed approach formulates this problem as an implicit coordination among the agents in a same environment that share a common objective regarding safety. The team aims to achieve a more secure and dynamic environmental awareness, enhancing road safety and increasing decision-making speed.

As the Principal Investigator of this project, Dr. Oh will oversee collaboration between CMU and KETI, and will support the successful technology transfer to KETI for the implementation of software into their systems.

“NREC’s partnership with KETI reinforces the common commitment of both organizations toward scientific and technological advancement in autonomy research. For instance, this first project will be focused on enhancing the safety and the robustness of autonomous driving in a variety of social and cultural settings,” said Dr. Oh. “I am excited about the ultimate benefits that will evolve from successfully integrating this sophisticated environmental awareness into self-driving vehicles that can make impacts to our everyday lives.”

KETI has previously worked with other departments within CMU’s School of Computer Science including the Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and the Language Technologies Institute (LTI). This most recent collaboration with NREC and the Robotics Institute reinforces the partnership and sets the stage for future collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University.

Martial Hebert, Dean of the School of Computer Science, and Dr. Youngjin Jang, President of KETI, formalized the collaborative relationship with the establishment of common research goals in robotics and AI. Representatives from SpringCloud, a Korean company for autonomous driving mobility services that CMU will also collaborate with in the first project, were also present.

The visit included a tour of the NREC building while highlighting key projects on display in the high bay.

KETI is the leading R&D institute specializing in electronics and IT under the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea. Since its establishment in 1991, KETI has enhanced the global competitiveness of the electronics industry by performing R&D on electronics and IT technologies and serving as the business platform to boost the growth of companies.