After competing for 17 days off the coast of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 18 students under the supervision of Professor Jinwhan Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Hyunchul Shim of the School of Electrical Engineering were hailed as first runner-up winners of the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) Maritime Grand Challenge on February 8. 

MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge, the largest ever marine robotics competition held biennially, is sponsored by the government of the United Arab Emirates and arranged by ASPIRE, an organization under the Abu Dhabi Ministry of Science. Starting from the end of 2021, the competition intensively screened 52 participating teams from around the world, selecting only five to proceed to the finals in February 2023 for a chance to win a share of the total prize money of 3 million USD.

In the contest's final stage, Team KAIST, the collective name for the four collaborating research teams from KAIST, was challenged to find, inspect, and retrieve stolen cargo in moving vessels. In response to the restrictions of non-human intervention and the use of GPS, they programmed fully automated robots equipped with drones that could investigate various ships and easily spot their targets. Their outstanding performance allowed them to breeze past their competitors in the initial stage of the task, securing a spot in the final three.

The challenge’s last leg featured two other remaining contestants vying for first place: UNIZG-FER from Croatia’s University of Zagreb, and Team Fly-Eagle, a team of researchers from China and the UAE. The three teams were given one more attempt to complete the mission within ten square kilometers of seawater, and the winner was determined by the fastest completion. Team KAIST remarkably finished closely behind UNIZG-FER, earning a total cash prize of approximately 860 million KRW.

Professor Jinwhan Kim conveyed his enthusiasm for his students’ feats, “I would like to express my gratitude and congratulations to the students who put in a huge academic and physical effort in preparing for the competition over the past two years. I feel rewarded because, regardless of the results, every bit of effort put into this up to this point will become the base of their confidence and a valuable asset in their growth into a great researcher.” 

Sol Han, a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who served as the team leader, spoke of his resigned stance, “I am disappointed by how narrowly we missed out on winning at the end, but I am satisfied with the significance of the output we’ve got and I am grateful to the team members who worked hard together for that.”