Urban Robotics Lab https://urobot.kaist.ac.kr KAIST EE <![CDATA[[Journal acceptance] TPAMI]]> IEEE TPAMI (Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence), Jul. 2026. (Accepted, IF = 20.4) transactions-pattern-analysis-machine-analysis-760x380-2x-1024x512.jpg]]> Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:26:14 +0000 <![CDATA[[Journal acceptance] ESWA]]> ESWA (Expert Systems With Applications), vol. 329, Nov. 2026. (IF=9.4) X09574174.jpg]]> Wed, 29 Jul 2026 09:59:36 +0000 <![CDATA[[SBS documentary] Life of AI]]> SBS 800회 특집 다큐멘터리 <라이프 오브 AI> ]]> Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:48:54 +0000 <![CDATA[Go2 자율보행, Portable Mapper, LocoVLM, Drone]]> ]]> Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:14:43 +0000 <![CDATA[DreamWalk, Portable Mapper, LocoVLM]]> ]]> Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:12:10 +0000 <![CDATA[Portable Mapper, Drone]]> ]]> Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:09:21 +0000 <![CDATA[Go2 자율보행, Portable Mapper, LocoVLM, G1 mapping, 드론 자율비행]]> ]]> Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:04:42 +0000 <![CDATA[Challenge Championships at ICRA'26 and CVPR'26]]> <From left: the ACDC-K Team, Prof. Hyun Myung, and the Curaytor Team. > Two research teams from KAIST EE have claimed first place in international challenge competitions held at the world’s premier robotics and computer vision conferences. The ACDC-K Team and the Curaytor Team, both from the laboratory of Prof. Hyun Myung, won first place in international challenge competitions held in conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2026) and the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2026), respectively. The achievement highlights the global competitiveness of KAIST’s robotic perception and spatial intelligence technologies, with two teams from the same laboratory securing victories in leading international competitions across distinct research fields. The ACDC-K Team won first place among more than 60 participating teams in the SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) category of the Hilti×Trimble SLAM Challenge 2026, held during the Open Challenges in Robotics for Asset Inspection (OCRAIM) Workshop at ICRA 2026 in Vienna, Austria, from June 1 to 5. ACDC K팀 시상식 왼쪽부터 전진우 박사과정팀장 명현 교수< ACDC-K Team at the award ceremony. From left: Jinwoo Jeon (Ph.D. candidate, Team Leader) and Prof. Hyun Myung. > Jointly organized by Hilti, Trimble, and the University of Oxford, the challenge evaluates robotic localization and mapping performance using sensor data collected from real construction sites. Participants were required to address practical challenges frequently encountered in construction environments, including non-overlapping front and rear fisheye camera configurations, low-texture indoor scenes, and rapid camera motion. To tackle these challenges, the ACDC-K Team developed a robust visual-inertial SLAM system that fuses front and rear fisheye camera data with inertial measurements. By integrating feature-point and feature-line observations with adaptive constraints and correction mechanisms, the team achieved highly reliable localization and mapping performance in complex construction environments. ACDC K팀이 개발한 기술의 위치 추정 및 지도작성 SLAM 결과 예시40m x 30m 규모< AExample of SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) results generated by the ACDC-K Team’s proposed technology in a 40 m × 30 m construction environment.) > Meanwhile, the Curaytor Team won first place among eight participating teams in the Nothing Stands Still (NSS) Challenge 2026, held during the Computer Vision for the Built World (CV4AEC) Workshop at CVPR 2026 in Denver, Colorado, from June 3 to 7. Curaytor팀 시상식 김대범 박사과정팀장< Curaytor Team receiving the award. Kim Daebeom (Team Leader, Ph.D. candidate) > Jointly organized by Stanford University, ETH Zurich, and Oregon State University, the NSS Challenge evaluates 3D point cloud registration technologies for construction and industrial environments that evolve over time. The Curaytor Team developed a novel multi-registration framework capable of aligning multiple LiDAR scans collected across different times and locations. The framework integrates feature extraction, correspondence estimation, robust global registration, registration confidence assessment, and change-aware refinement techniques. As a result, the team achieved highly accurate registration performance even in environments containing structural changes and dynamic objects. Curaytor팀이 개발한 기술의 다중 정합 multiway registration 결과 예시 1500평 규모< Example of multiway registration results generated by the Curaytor Team’s proposed technology in a large-scale environment covering approximately 4,960 m² > “This achievement demonstrates the robustness of our visual-inertial SLAM and 3D LiDAR registration technologies in complex and constantly changing real-world environments,” said Prof. Hyun Myung. “It is particularly meaningful that our students secured first-place finishes in highly competitive international challenges hosted at two of the world’s most prestigious conferences in robotics and computer vision.” Prof. Hyun Myung’s laboratory has consistently demonstrated excellence in spatial intelligence research. The laboratory previously won first place in the LiDAR track and ranked first among academic teams in the vision track of the Hilti SLAM Challenge in 2023. In addition, the Curaytor Team successfully defended its title in the NSS Challenge, securing back-to-back championships in 2025 and 2026.
TJB | KAIST, 세계 권위 로보틱스·컴퓨터비전 챌린지 잇따라 우승 동아사이언스 | 명현 KAIST 교수 연구팀, 로보틱스·컴퓨터비전 국제챌린지 석권 헬로디디 | 건설 현장 공간인지 기술 입증···KAIST, 국제 챌린지 2관왕 달성 KAIST | 명현 교수팀, 세계 최고 권위 로보틱스·컴퓨터비전 국제챌린지 나란히 우승​]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2026 21:36:07 +0000 <![CDATA[RA-L acceptance]]> ]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2026 21:28:52 +0000 <![CDATA[IROS'26 acceptance]]> <IROS papers>
  • PLED-VINS: A Point-Line Event-Based Visual Inertial SLAM for Dynamic Environments (Seunghun Lee, Jihun Nam, Dong-Uk Seo, Hyun Myung*)
  • Robust Structureless Monocular Visual-Inertial Initialization Exploiting Line Features and Vanishing Points (Junwan Choi, Woongrae Jo, Dong-Uk Seo, Jinwoo Jeon, Hyun Myung*)
<RA-L papers>
  • LODESTAR: Degeneracy-Aware LiDAR-Inertial Odometry with Adaptive Schmidt-Kalman Filter and Data Exploitation (Lee, Eungchang Mason,Marsim, Kevin Christiansen,Myung, Hyun*)
  • GaussianFlow SLAM: Monocular Gaussian Splatting SLAM Guided by GaussianFlow (Seo, Dong-Uk,Jeon, Jinwoo,Lee, Eungchang Mason,Myung, Hyun*)
  • Chamelion : Reliable Change Detection for Long-Term LiDAR Mapping in Transient Environments (Jang, Seoyeon,Lee, Alex,Nahrendra, I Made Aswin,Myung, Hyun*)
unnamed-768x499.png]]> Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:05:59 +0000 <![CDATA[[2026 Summer-Fall] Intern Recruiting]]> [KOR]

명현 교수님 연구실에서 2026년 여름-가을 인턴을 모집합니다

  • 인턴 기간: 여름 방학 ~ 가을 학기 (7월 ~ 12월)
  • 지원 자격: 학부 재학생 또는 졸업생 (자대/타대 무관)
  • 모집 인원: 1 ~ 2명

  • 신청 기한: ~ 5월  20일 (수)

  • 지원 방법: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kCmw2_g_8gcY3u1g0Y8OTUWYdjr59njQHV7ZXvWH8ZM/edit?usp=sharing 의 [지원 링크] 를 통해 구글폼 작성                   

  • KAIST URL(전기및전자공학부 명현 교수님)에서 2026년 여름-가을 함께할 학부 인턴을 조기 모집합니다.

  • 학부 인턴은 연구실 내에서 진행되고 있는 프로젝트에 배정되어 활동을 하게 될 예정입니다.

  • 저희 연구실로 박사 및 석사과정 진학을 희망하신다면, 인턴 활동을 먼저 경험하시길 권장합니다.

  • Q&A: intern@urobot.kaist.ac.kr 

=================================================================

[ENG]

2026 Summer-Fall Semester Intern #1 Recruiting in Urban Robotics Lab.

  • Period of activity: Summer ~ Fall semester (July ~ December)
  • Qualification: Undergraduate
  • Numbers: 1 ~ 2 members

  • Application Deadline: ~ May 20 (Wed.)
  • How to apply: Please write an application through the google form https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kCmw2_g_8gcY3u1g0Y8OTUWYdjr59njQHV7ZXvWH8ZM/edit?usp=sharing 

  • KAIST URL(Advisor: Prof. Hyun Myung) is recruiting undergraduate interns to join us in the Summer-Fall

  • Undergraduate internships will be conducted in a way that interns will be assigned to one of the Lab projects.

  • If you want to go on to a Ph.D. or master's candidates in our lab, we recommend that you experience the internship first.

  • Q&A: intern@urobot.kaist.ac.kr 
]]> Fri, 08 May 2026 13:56:46 +0000 <![CDATA[Prof. Myung wins KAIST Research Grand Prize]]> 111613_335457_3810.jpg KAIST | ‘2026 리서치데이’ 연구대상에 명현 교수 선정 연합뉴스 | KAIST, '2026 리서치데이' 연구대상에 명현 교수 선정 전자신문 | KAIST, '2026 리서치데이' 개최...명현 교수가 연구대상 수상 헤럴드경제 | 세계최고 자율보행 로봇 개발…KAIST ‘연구대상’에 명현 교수 TJB | KAIST 리서치데이…명현 교수 연구대상 선정 AJP press | KAIST honors Professor Myung Hyun with Research Grand Prize for spatial AI robotics]]> Wed, 29 Apr 2026 22:46:53 +0000 <![CDATA[DreamWaQ++]]>
  • Real-time topography and movement control
  • "The stage of understanding and self-judging"
    • KAIST, 사람처럼 ‘보고 판단해 움직이는 로봇’ 현실화
    • KAIST-유로보틱스(주), 장애물 인지해 스스로 걷는 로봇 기술 개발
    • 기존 블라인드 보행 한계 극복한 ‘드림워크++’, 세계 최고 권위 로보틱스 저널 IEEE T-RO 게재
    • 센서 고장에도 멈추지 않는 보행....사족휴머노이드·휠-족형 등 다양한 로봇 플랫폼에 적용 가능
    • 재난 산업 현장 등 극한 환경 활용 기대
    KBS 9시 뉴스: 로봇도 ‘자율주행’…차-로봇 ‘기술 교차’ 가속화 TJB 뉴스: '사람처럼 보고 판단해 걷는 로봇'..뭐가 보이길래? TJB | [T나는 과학] "사람처럼 보고 판단해 걷는다"…'지능형 사족보행 로봇' 개발 KBS | “눈으로 보고 스스로 걷는다”…KAIST, 인지형 사족보행 로봇 기술 개발 KBS 뉴스: ‘로봇 댕댕이’에 눈 달아주니 계단 백워킹…시각 기반 로봇 성장 ‘쑥~’ KBS | [News Today] “Robots navigate obstacles, read text” YTN 사이언스 투데이 | 자율주행 기술 품은 로봇…스스로 보고 판단해 움직인다 자율주행 기술 품은 로봇…스스로 보고 판단해 움직인다 전자신문 | '사람 같은 인지·판단·보행 가능' KAIST, 사족보행 로봇 제어 구현 매일경제 | 사람처럼 스스로 보고 판단해 움직이는 로봇 기술 개발 동아사이언스 | 눈으로 보고 스스로 판단해 걷는 로봇…35도 급경사도 거뜬 지디넷코리아 | 장애물 대응 "사람처럼"…4족보행로봇 상용 제어기 선보여 헤럴드경제 | “높은 계단 거뜬하게 뛰어넘는 이 녀석” 정체 알고보니…눈 없는 ‘로봇 개’ Donga Science | Quadruped robot uses vision to autonomously navigate challenging terrain Maeil Business | A large dog-sized four-legged robot walks up curved stairs]]>     Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:48:55 +0000     <![CDATA[[Journal acceptance] RA-L]]> †, "GaussianFlow SLAM: Monocular Gaussian Splatting SLAM Guided by GaussianFlow," IEEE RA-L (Robotics and Automation Letters), Mar. 2026. (Accepted). ]]> Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:41:19 +0000 <![CDATA[1st Place Overall, NSS (Nothing Stands Still) Challenge, IEEE ICRA'25, 2025]]>
  • Professor Hyun Myung’s research team from the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering took the first place overall at the NSS Challenge, held on May 19 at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), the world’s top robotics conference, in Atlanta, USA.
  • The award recognized their core technology for robustly aligning LiDAR sensor data collected at different times and locations to autonomously estimate poses and generate maps.
  • This technology is expected to be widely applied in various autonomous systems, including self-driving vehicles and field robotics.
    • For more information: KAIST | 명현 교수팀, 세계적 권위 로봇 학술대회서 챌린지 우승​ ZDnet | KAIST, 국제 로봇 학술대회 '챌린지' 우승…중국 및 대만 제쳐
    The Urban Robotics Lab, led by Professor Hyun Myung from the School of Electrical Engineering, secured the first place overall at the "Nothing Stands Still (NSS) Challenge 2025,”held in the "Future of Construction: Safe, Reliable, and Precise Robots in Construction Environments” workshop at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), the world's premier robotics conference, which took place in Atlanta, USA, from May 19 to 23, 2025. NSS Challenge is co-hosted by HILTI, a global construction company based in Liechtenstein, and Gradient Spaces Group at Stanford University. It is an advanced version of HILTI SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) Challenge, which has been held since 2021, and is now considered one of the most prestigious challenges at ICRA. This challenge evaluates how accurately and robustly LiDAR scan data, collected across various time periods in structurally dynamic environments such as construction and industrial sites, can be registered. Rather than focusing solely on single-instance registration accuracy, it emphasizes multi-session localization and mapping (Multi-session SLAM) technologies capable of handling structural changes over time, making it one of the most technically demanding competitions in the field. Urban Robotics Lab team secured the first place overall by a significant margin over National Taiwan University (3rd place) and Northwestern Polytechnical University of China (2nd place), with their novel localization and mapping technology that solves the alignment problem of LiDAR data collected across diverse periods and locations. The winning team will be awarded a prize of $4,000. Urban Robotics Lab team developed a multiway registration framework capable of robustly aligning multiple scans without prior connectivity information. This framework consists of three core components: CubicFeat, an algorithm that summarizes local features within each scan and identifies correspondences; Quatro, a global registration algorithm that aligns scans based on those correspondences; and Chamelion, a refinement module based on change detection. This combination of techniques shows stable alignment performance even in highly dynamic industrial environments by focusing on static structural elements. LiDAR scan registration technology is a core component of SLAM used in various autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, autonomous robots, legged platforms, aerial vehicles, and maritime navigation systems. In particular, the awarded technology has demonstrated exceptional precision in estimating the relative poses between scans in complex environments, proving both its academic significance and practical applicability in industry. Professor Hyun Myung of the School of Electrical Engineering at KAIST stated, “It is deeply meaningful to have demonstrated our technological capabilities by solving multi-session SLAM challenges in complex and constantly changing industrial environments.” He added, “I am grateful to the students who persevered and never gave up, even when many other teams withdrew due to the difficulty of the competition.” The Urban Robotics Lab team first participated in the SLAM Challenge in 2022, winning 2nd place in the academic division, and in 2023, they took 1st place overall in the LiDAR division and 1st place in the academic division of the vision track.
    KAIST 전기및전자공학부 명현 교수 연구실 김대범, 이승재, 장서연 박사과정, 공제이 석사 과정으로 이뤄진 Team "Urban Robotics Lab, KAIST" 팀이 로봇 분야 최대 규모 학술대회인 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA, 국제 로봇 및 자동화 학술대회) 에서 개최된 HILTI Nothing Stands Still (NSS) Challenge 2025에서 1위의 성과를 거두었다. HILTI NSS Challenge 2025는 로봇 분야에서 가장 저명한 IEEE ICRA 학회의 Future of Construction Workshop 프로그램의 일부로, 리히텐슈타인 공국의 HILTI 사와 미국 스탠포드 대학의 Gradient Spaces Group이 함께 주최하였다. 본 Challenge는 실제 건설 및 산업 환경에서 발생하는 다중 세션 기반의 변화 환경에서의 정합 문제를 다루는 대회로, 서로 다른 시간대와 위치에서 획득된 라이다 스캔 데이터들 간의 강인한 정합 성능을 목표로 한다. 이는 단순 정합 정확도만을 보는 것이 아니라, 다수의 시간대에 걸쳐 취득한 라이다 스캔들에서 구조 변화로 인한 간섭에도 불구하고, 고정 구조에 기반한 강인한 정합을 수행할 수 있는지를 중점적으로 평가하는 점에서 학술적·산업적 의의가 크다. 2021년도부터 개최되던 HILTI SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping, 위치추정 및 지도작성) Challenge는 ICRA 내의 챌린지들 중에서도 저명한 챌린지 중 하나로 손꼽히며, 특히 올해 대회는 장기간에 걸친 SLAM 문제를 풀어야 한다는 면에서 더욱 고도화된 기술을 필요로 하는 멀티세션 (Multi-session) SLAM 문제로도 불린다. 본 연구팀은 사전 연결 정보 없이 다수의 스캔을 강인하게 정합하는 다중 정합 (multiway-registration) 프레임워크를 자체 개발하였다. 즉, 스캔 내의 특징점을 요약하고 강인하게 대응점을 찾아내는 알고리즘(CubicFeat)과 찾아낸 대응점을 기반으로 전역 정합을 수행하는 알고리즘(Quatro)을 자체 개발하여 활용하였다. 이후, 변화 감지 기반 결과 정제를 위해 자체 개발한 알고리즘(Chamelion)을 활용하여 변화 영역을 탐지하고, 더욱 정확한 정합을 수행하도록 프레임워크를 설계하여 2위와 큰 점수 차이로 전체 1위를 하였고, 부상으로 상금 4,000 USD를 받을 예정이다. (그림 5 참고) 본 연구팀은 2022년에 처음 출전하여 학계 2위를 수상하고, 2023년에는 라이다 부문 전체 1위, 비전 부문 학계 1위를 수상한 바 있다. 참고로 라이다 스캔 정합 기술은 자율주행 (자율차/자율로봇), 자율보행, 자율비행, 자율운항 등 다양한 자율 시스템에서의 SLAM의 핵심 구성 요소 중 하나로, 서로 다른 스캔 사이의 상대 위치를 정밀하게 추정하는 기술이다.

    <Fig. 1. Example of multiway registration of LiDAR scans from different time periods>

    <Fig. 2. Example of change detection using the Chamelion algorithm>

    <Fig. 3. Competition leaderboard; lower RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) indicates a higher score. (Unit: meters)>

    <Fig. 4. A scene from the oral presentation on the winning team's technology (presenters: Seungjae Lee and Seoyeon Jang, Ph.D. candidates)>

    <Fig. 5. From left: Daebeom Kim (Ph.D. candidate, team leader), Seungjae Lee (Ph.D. candidate), Seoyeon Jang (Ph.D. candidate), Jei Kong (M.S. candidate), Professor Hyun Myung>

    ]]>     Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:46:33 +0000     <![CDATA[2nd Place, The 3rd QRC (Quadruped Robot Challenge), IEEE ICRA'25, Atlanta, USA, 2025]]> ]]> Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:46:12 +0000 <![CDATA[2nd Place in Autonomous at the 2nd QRC (Quadruped Robot Challenge), IEEE ICRA'24, Yokohama, Japan, 2024]]> Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:45:46 +0000 <![CDATA[Prof. Myung Wins Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Award]]> Photo: From left, TA Taewan Kim (김태완, Ph.D. student), Professor Hyun Myung, and TA Mincheol Kim (김민철, Ph.D. student).]]> Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:07:50 +0000 <![CDATA[QRC, LocoVLM, Humanoid, Drone]]>   ]]> Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:33:06 +0000 <![CDATA[[2026 Spring] Early Intern Recruiting #3 (expired)]]> [KOR]

    명현 교수님 연구실에서 봄 조기 인턴을 모집합니다.

    • 인턴 기간: 2026년 4월 ~ 상반기까지 (8월 예상)
    • 지원 자격: 학부 재학생 (자대/타대 무관)
    • 모집 인원: 1명
    • 신청 기한: ~4/9 까지
    • 지원 방법:
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QJfYl1Ne3ir4l920CtMeKafDOW9NgTcAO4F1z-FHseE/edit?usp=sharing

      의 [지원 링크] 를 통해 구글폼 작성                   

    • KAIST URL(전기 및 전자공학부 명현 교수님)에서 함께할 학부 인턴을 모집합니다.
    • 학부 인턴은 연구실 내에서 진행되고 있는 프로젝트에 배정되어 활동을 하게 될 예정입니다.
    • 저희 연구실로 박사 및 석사과정 진학을 희망하신다면, 인턴 활동을 먼저 경험하시길 권장합니다.
    • Q&A: intern@urobot.kaist.ac.kr

    =====================

    [ENG]

    2026 Spring Early Intern Recruiting in Urban Robotics Lab.

    • Period of activity: from April to August (tentative)
    • Qualification: Undergraduate (Korean)
    • Numbers: 1 member
    • Application Deadline: ~ April 9 (Thursday)
    • How to apply: Please submit your application through the Google Form using the [Apply link] in the document below.
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QJfYl1Ne3ir4l920CtMeKafDOW9NgTcAO4F1z-FHseE/edit?usp=sharing
    • KAIST Urban Robotics Lab is recruiting undergraduate interns to join us in the Winter~Summer.
    • Undergraduate internships will be conducted in a way that interns will be assigned to one of the Lab projects.
    • If you want to go on to a doctor or master's candidates in our lab, we recommend that you experience the internship first.
    • Q&A: intern@urobot.kaist.ac.kr
    ]]>     Mon, 09 Mar 2026 16:45:02 +0000