Pukyong National University Wins Overall Championship at the First 'Autonomous Boat Competition'

Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering Club ‘PASS’ Team Sweeps Awards in 5 Categories

The PASS team from Pukyong National University won the overall championship at the autonomous navigation boat competition.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Pukyong National University won the overall championship at the autonomous navigation boat competition, ‘KABOAT 2020’.

The PASS team (representative Kim Jeong-hyun, advisor Professor Park Jong-yong) from the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Systems Engineering at Pukyong National University swept all five awards at the competition held over three days from the 12th at the Gyeongnam Robot Land Convention Center, securing the overall championship.

Organized by the Korean Society of Naval Architects and the Gyeongnam Robot Land Foundation, this competition was held for the first time this year to promote government R&D achievements aimed at fostering advanced marine shipbuilding industries, to activate university research, nurture outstanding talent, and discover cutting-edge technologies in the marine shipbuilding field.

The competition featured about 300 participants from 25 teams representing 21 universities nationwide. Teams designed and built autonomous navigation boats weighing under 100kg equipped with batteries and motors, competing in large-scale test tanks and other venues.

The Pukyong National University PASS team participated with their autonomous navigation boat ‘PASS MARKⅠ’, equipped with a guidance navigation control algorithm for collision avoidance, LiDAR sensors, GPS, and a Raspberry Pi processor.

The team won five awards, including the Advanced Convergence Technology Award (Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Award) given to the overall first-place team, Best Design Award, 1st place in the autonomous navigation category, 3rd place in the remote control category, and an encouragement award, achieving the highest number of awards.

They secured first place by a wide margin over the second-place team in the main autonomous navigation category by avoiding all obstacles. They achieved excellent results in all categories including autonomous navigation, remote control, autopilot, and design and manufacturing.

Professor Park Jong-yong, advisor from the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Systems Engineering at Pukyong National University, said, “The students built the system with minimal equipment and low costs, refined the autonomous navigation algorithm through numerous tests, and achieved great results. This algorithm can also be utilized as a key technology to realize autonomous navigation in the advanced shipbuilding industry.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.