Opportunities

Our vision

Our lab’s vision is to give consciousness, conscience, and autonomy to artificial objects. This is a long-held dream of humanity, which aims to create humans in the image of the Creator in Genesis, or to give fire to humans like Prometheus. As seen in Frankenstein, Pinocchio, and Astro Boy, this dream continues to this day.

However, this vision is not easy to realize, because we need to deeply understand the principles of both hardware (body; robot) and software (mind; AI), and mastering either one of them is very challenging. To realize this ideal, we need to identify and design the necessary components, and choose the most core one among them to focus on achieving innovation. Our aim is to make the numerous independent innovations around the world gradually converge toward the goal.

Humans start from the first cell, the zygote, and take out the blueprint–DNA–corresponding to the internal and external stimuli and use the biological 3D printer–ribosome–to make organic matter. This is why we need to understand not only the internal components, but also the external environment that stimulates humans, and the interaction between people.

Outlook of our field

This field has a wide range of applications in various domains, such as manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, medical, financial, defense, art, entertainment, and more. Its scope is constantly expanding.

To understand the reason for this, we need to comprehend the global situation, which encounters challenges linked to the imbalance of resources, energy, food, and manpower. In areas where people are the only valuable resource, education and training are crucial for the nation's survival.

The problem lies in the declining young workforce attributed to the aging demographic trend in most advanced countries. As the baby boom generation retires, the demand for welfare and medical care has exploded. A huge budget is poured out, but the supply remains the same. That’s why the medical school cramming phenomenon can be seen as a kind of panic buying due to the shortage of supply compared to the explosive demand.

However, this money is not free. To avoid running out of money, we have two options: we can either use robots and AI to substitute the limited workforce, or collaborate with countries that face different challenges from us. However, both options will require more engineers who have expertise in robots, AI, and the global ecosystems.

Our strategy

To master such a capability in a limited time of graduate school, one needs a special training program and an infrastructure base that has accumulated a lot of know-how. One way is to make it yourself. You can understand it better if you think about the difference between a film director and an audience.

Robots with AI are ultimately becoming more human-like, because we have made the environment comfortable for humans to live in, and artificial objects that harmonize with it are ultimately similar to humans. Therefore, our research is also a process of understanding ourselves—humans.

Making such creatures involves a creative process. It has the excitement and joy of creating something that did not exist in the world, but on the other hand, it also entails an uncomfortable and painful process. Such AI and robot technologies are in demand in almost all fields related to living on Earth, so we focus on more fundamental issues by generalizing problems that have social demand rather than hypothetical ones.

By making it yourself, you can experience collecting data from the start. Data is like the textbook and experience of AI, and it is the beginning of AI. Since you can create data that did not exist before, it is worth recommending as a survival strategy in the AI era. Being able to think independently of the platform, out-of-box thinking, is its advantage.

our Uniqueness

We aim to offer opportunities to design and create moving artificial things that possess awareness and conscience, starting from the idea stage.

Major selection

Our lab offers the following three options:

• Smart city major in Civil and Environmental Engineering emphasizes the environmental aspects and design of systems that have inclusive and long-term effects, where students are also trained to plan and manage technology projects related to people and environments like cities, enabling them to overcome any difficulties and successfully complete them.

• Graduate School of Engineering Practice trains students to solve real-world problems by analyzing the root causes and identifying the core principles that can be reused.

• TEMEP program studies the impact of technology and engineering on humanities and social sciences.

In the case of other majors such as Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, and Architecture, supervision is possible under special circumstances like joint supervision.

Facility and Equipment

• GPU servers in multiple racks (~30 GPUs just on the servers)

• Sensors: Lidar, vision camera, radar, RGB-D, etc.

• Digital fabrication machines: 3D printers & CNC cutting machine.

• Machinery equipment and electrical measuring instruments.

• A garage for storing and repairing vehicles, and a test track on campus for experimental vehicles.

• Vehicle: Electric golf cart (X-by-wired, named Loki), and multi-purpose truck.

• Robots: We have various robots, including Quadruped robot dog, Husky, Turtle bot, drone, and industrial robotic arm. However, we recommend designing and building yours from scratch.

Our culture

• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus, 1818

• Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, and Episode VI Return of the Jedi, How does the Rebel Alliance confront the Empire?