The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement, and the PyeongChang Olympic Robot Support Team will hold a Ski Robot Competition at Welli Hilli Park in Doonnae, PyeongChang–gun, Gangwon Province on February 11th and 12th. The aim of the competition is to replicate the Giant Slalom, which makes up the technical events in alpine ski racing.

Eight teams are slated to participate in this event. They include teams from Mini Robot Inc., Hanyang University, Myongji University, Kookmin University, Kyungpook National University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, and the Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence. The Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement will be accepting applications from teams until the end of this month, and from October to December this year, they expect to finalize test bed construction and performance tests.

When fitted with their skis, the robots should bipedal, humanoid, and stand between 0.5 to 1m. During the competition, the robot must operate independently, without outside manipulation other than the start command at the outset. The power source must be electric and the robot must make use of ski poles. The ski slope is 70 m in length and 20m wide. The competition allows for 3 attempts per team; of the three, the highest score (mission score + record score) will count towards the final score.

On December 6th, the teams took part in “A Night out with Robot People” at the Seoul Dragon City in Yongsan, during which the ski robots were presented to the world. The following are brief features of the robots. The names of the robots are in parenthesis.

▲Skibot @ KNU

▲ Kyungpook National University: (Skibot @ KNU) Robot with parallel ankle structure developed for control according to slope conditions

▲RoK, Robot of Kookmin

▲ Kookmin University: (RoK, Robot of Kookmin) Robot with Deep learning-based, a ski gate recognition capabilities through high performance recognition algorithm

▲ Myongji University : (Humanoid Ski Robot) Robot with minimized number of components through integration of the sensors in the robot for effective design and process

▲Taekwon Boy

▲ Mini Robot : (Taekwon Boy) Robot with constant temperature and humidity maintenance capabilities, through improved servo motor

▲Rudolf

▲ Seoul National University of Science and Technology: (Rudolf) Robot capable of controlling its center of gravity through a gyroscope

▲TIBO

▲ Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology: (TIBO) Robot equipped with advanced technology to exploit upper body moverments for maintaining balance during acceleration

▲SKIRO

▲ Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence: (SKIRO) Robot with balance control algorithm to maintain stability

▲DIANA

▲ Hanyang University : (DIANA) Robot can generate its own path and commensurate motions