Korea Polytechnic University announced that its student team has won second place in the Manual (Teleoperation) category and an Excellence Award in the Autonomous Driving category at the “Robot Competition” organized by the The Korean Robotics Society.
The competition was held from February 4 to 6 at Alpensia in Gangwon Province as part of the 21st Korean Conference on Robotics. Competing against leading university teams nationwide, KPU’s Mecha Team (students Kim In-woong, Lim Seung-chan, Lim Hyeong-seop, Jeong Taek-yoon, Jeong Jae-hoon, Han Seo-young, and Kim Dong-jin) demonstrated outstanding practical capabilities in both manual control and fully autonomous robot operation.
Proving Real-World Autonomous Driving Capabilities
In the autonomous category, participants were required to complete complex missions under real-world simulated conditions, including snow driving, obstacle avoidance, and path tracking—using fully autonomous control systems without human intervention. The event demanded advanced sensor data processing, robust driving algorithm design, and precise obstacle avoidance technologies.
The Mecha Team achieved a high completion rate and strong accuracy performance, earning high evaluations from the judges for both technical completeness and creative problem-solving.
Kim In-woong, a member of the team, said, “Implementing stable autonomous driving performance on snow-covered terrain was our greatest challenge. Through repeated testing and iterative improvements, we were able to develop effective solutions. This experience strengthened our collaboration and problem-solving skills and gave us greater confidence in preparing for our future careers.”
Practice-Oriented Education Yields Tangible Results
Jeong Myeong-jin, Director of the Intelligent Robotics Convergence Education Program at KPU, stated, “This achievement reflects the students’ practical competencies built through project-based learning. We will continue to strengthen field-oriented education to cultivate robotics professionals who can be immediately deployed in industrial settings.”
The Intelligent Robotics Convergence Education Project is part of the Advanced Field Innovation Convergence University Initiative supported by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea. Led by Hanyang University ERICA, the consortium includes Korea Polytechnic University, Kwangwoon University, Pukyong National University, Sangmyung University, Yeungjin College, and Chosun University. The project runs from 2021 through 2026.
About Korea Polytechnic University
Established in 1998 by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Korea Polytechnic University, located in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, is a leading industry-academia cooperation-focused institution in South Korea. The university collaborates with approximately 19,000 regional companies and has built one of the country’s most advanced industry partnership networks.
With most of its departments dedicated to engineering disciplines, KPU has produced more than 30,000 engineering professionals over the past 28 years. The campus hosts 125 corporate research institutes and maintains partnerships with over 4,400 affiliated companies, forming one of the largest university-industry cooperation networks in Korea.
