Academy Users Report / Vol.35
Automotive Engineering, Kookmin University

Promote Software R&D to Apply AI to Autonomous Driving
Won Grand Prix of CPWC with Driver Warning System Cooperating with UC-win/Road and Using Deep Learning


Automotive Engineering, Kookmin University
URL: https://english.kookmin.ac.kr/
Location: Seongbuk-Gu, Seoul, Korea
Research Contents: AI for automobile

















Bugaku Campus of Kookmin University

Total Welfare Office, Kookmin University

"KaAI", a team from Kookmin University, Korea, won Grand Prix of the 10th CPWC (Cloud Programming World Cup). It is a club researching on AI for automobile, and the team name "KaAI" stands for Kookmin automotive Artificial Intelligence. The team members are working hard to deepen their knowledge and develop software, aiming at applying artificial intelligence, a core area of the fourth industrial revolution, to autonomous driving cars. Their goal is to develop their future career paths through participating in national and international competitions in related fields and presenting papers at academic conferences and in academic journals.

Detailed research includes AI-related technologies and sensor fusion for autonomous driving vehicles, cognitive technologies, human-vehicle interaction technologies, and vehicle-simulator-based VR/AR technologies. The club is open to the students who are at the Department of Automobile and IT Convergence, Department of Future Mobility, and Department of Automotive Engineering and who can continue their activities until graduation. They join overseas competitions and international academic competitions every year, including CPWC, CVPR and ancillary competitions (AICity Challenge, WAD Challenge), ICCV/ECCV competitions in September, and NeurIPS in December.



Constant Efforts to Strengthen Research and Education on Basis of 140 Years of History

Dr. Sang Hun Lee, the instructor of the club, is a professor in Automotive Engineering Dept. of graduate school and undergraduate school at Kookmin University. After acquiring his PhD degree at Seoul University and got experience of research at Washington University and Carnegie Mellon University in the US, he has taught and researched at Kookmin University since 1996. As a premier expert in the fields of human-machine interaction (HMI) and AI and machine learning / deep learning, he is leading the academia related to automotive and autonomous driving.


Kookmin University's Departments and Faculties that KaAI Members Are Studying at
KaAI is a club consisted of students of science departments of Kookmin University with a purpose of researching on AI for automobile.
College of Automotive Engineering
In order to cultivate automotive experts who represent the status of Korea, the world's top four power in automobile industry, the College of Automotive Engineering was established in 2014 as the first automobile-specialized college in Korea under the full support from the Korean government and automobile businesses.
The college is composed of two departments; Department of Automotive Engineering that was established in 1992 and the newly founded Department of Automobile and IT Convergence.
Department of Automotive Engineering
The Department of Automotive Engineering was established in 1992 as a special department designed for the cultivation of high-tech automobile industry and since then, it has produced countless persons of talent who take pivotal roles for the social development in a variety of fields.
Modern technology is being developed by organically combining various fields of academe and especially, the traditional course of automotive engineering can no longer respond to the changes taking place. Thus, the Department of Automotive Engineering provides education for the cultivation of professional technicians based on comprehensive academic knowledge, ranging from mechanical system design to controller design in use of computer technology. Especially, the Department of Automotive Engineering was taken as an independent department from the existing Department of Automotive Engineering in the Engineering College; thus, it is expected to build up the reputation for more specialized automobile education.
Department of Automobile and IT Convergence
For the creation of new values through converged automobile and IT technology, the Department of Automobile and IT Convergence was established in 2014 in pursuit of cultivating highly qualified professionals who are equipped with converged knowledge in automotive engineering, computer science, and electrical engineering.
The education provided in the Department of Automobile and IT Convergence puts emphasis on the cultivation of creative talent who can autonomously identify, express, and solve problems. Moreover, field education and class participation of experts in related business will be actively utilized to provide the students with a realistic learning environment.

The intelligence and interaction lab, a laboratory currently run by Dr. Lee, has produced many outstanding masters and PhDs in industry.



Current Utilization and Equipment of UC-win/Road

This club is studying on a machine-learning-based system to predict drivers' intention on highway and is utilizing the driving simulator, eye tracking device, and head motion tracking sensor. In particular, they can produce detailed scenarios for experiments by using UC-win/Road equipped with the simulator. The image below shows the constructed experiment device.


1,2:Simulator experiment using UC-win/Road / 3:Vehicle simulator using real-car parts

In addition, in 2020, a paper on their research of the experiment using UC-win/Road was published in an international academic journal (Journal of Computational Design and Engineering). They developed a user interface based on the position of hands over the steering wheel and a Head Up Display (HUD). This is the idea to minimize visual distraction when operating the audio and radio system in the central console while driving.



Won Grand Prix of CPWC

The team KAAD from the club CaAI consisted of 9 students including the team leader Song Seunghyun at the 3rd grade of Department of Automobile and IT Convergence and participated in the 10th CPWC in 2022.

Teams from Kookmin University have participated in CPWC every year since the 5th CPWC in 2017 and won the World Cup Award for twice and Honorable Judge Award for 3 times. In 2022, KaAI received the World Cup Award for the 3rd time as the university with the work named TAP (Traffic Accident Prediction).

The theme of this work is abnormality detection during driving, and they did research and development with the goal of defining abnormal values in driving conditions and detecting them. Finally, they built a system to process sensor data obtained during driving, detect abnormal elements around the vehicle in operation through deep learning, and warn the driver.

The students and professor are enthusiastic about their future participation in CPWC and have high expectations for Forum8's software, commenting "We appreciate Forum8 to host the CPWC competition every year. It is our favorite competition, and we are willing to continue to participate in. We think that UC-win/Road will develop more if it becomes more compatible with other software in the automotive field and it has higher rendering quality."

 
On-wheel gestures to control radio and audio devices
HUD-based interface flow
1 The current interface that uses the
haptic interface of the central console
2 The new interface that uses the on-wheel
gesture and HUD

 Won Grand Prix of the 10th CPWC

Poster of the work winning Grand Prix of the 10th CPWC
Left: Dr. Sang Hun Lee (right) and the students of KaAI / Right: KaAI's presentation at the 10th CPWC
(Up&Coming '23 New Year issue)



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