Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Hold 2022 'Invention Day' Event

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] Hyundai Motor Company and Kia held an ‘Invention Day’ event to discover outstanding ideas that will lead future automotive technologies and to encourage creative research and development activities.

On the 19th, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia announced that they held the ‘Invention Day’ event at the Namyang Research Center to encourage creative research and development activities among R&D talents and to reward outstanding patent developers.

Now in its 12th year, ‘Invention Day’ is one of the representative R&D knowledge competitions in the domestic automotive industry. Hyundai Motor Company and Kia selected innovative ideas derived from new technologies in the R&D sector and the development process of mass-produced vehicles, filing patents and granting awards. The various innovative technologies discovered here have greatly contributed to enhancing the product competitiveness of Hyundai Motor Company and Kia vehicles and strengthening the future competitiveness of the mobility industry.

This year, among approximately 3,000 in-house invention ideas filed as patents by Hyundai Motor Company and Kia last year, a total of 16 patent proposals in future core technology fields such as autonomous driving, Urban Air Mobility (UAM), next-generation batteries, and electrified powertrains were shortlisted as first-round candidates. Among these, the top nine were finally selected as outstanding inventions.

On the day of the event, awards were presented for the nine outstanding patents that reached the final round, including ▲Unmanned delivery vehicle body module assembly concept considering smart factory production (Kim Seok-ju, Principal Researcher) ▲New concept in-wheel motor system (Park Jong-sul, Senior Fellow and Chief Researcher) ▲Protective layer material for all-solid-state batteries (Lim Ga-hyun, Researcher) ▲Organ-type electronic brake pedal (Kim Eun-sik, Researcher) ▲Ultra-high-strength rear lower side member structure for electric vehicles (Park Ji-woong, Principal Researcher) ▲Humanoid robot hand implementing modular fingers (Kim Beom-su, Principal Researcher) ▲Fuel cell system power distribution system (Lee Jae-kwang, Researcher) ▲Highly durable electrolyte membrane for fuel cells (Park In-yu, Principal Researcher) ▲Voice control through zone marking of vehicle interior images (Park Min-jae, Principal Researcher).

The final evaluation was conducted through patent assessment and scoring, with ▲Kim Seok-ju (Principal Researcher), Park Jong-sul (Senior Fellow and Chief Researcher), and Lim Ga-hyun (Researcher) receiving the Grand Prize ▲Kim Eun-sik (Researcher) receiving the Excellence Award ▲Park Ji-woong (Principal Researcher), Kim Beom-su (Principal Researcher), Lee Jae-kwang (Researcher), Park In-yu (Principal Researcher), and Park Min-jae (Principal Researcher) receiving Encouragement Awards.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia also operate ‘i-LAB (Intellectual Property - Innovation/Invention/Idea Laboratory),’ an incubating project where in-house inventors, patent managers, and specialized patent offices collaborate to proactively build promising patent portfolios in core technology fields such as future mobility.

At this year’s ‘Invention Day’ event, among the approximately 150 i-LAB activities conducted last year, two were selected as outstanding i-LAB activities and awarded: ▲Purpose-built vehicle (PBV) body concept structure (Kim Min-su, Principal Researcher) and ▲Sound-based smart emotional care solution development (Kim Ki-chang, Principal Researcher).

In addition, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia have established and implemented a systematic patent incentive system that evaluates the quantitative effects of researchers’ domestic and international patent filings, registrations, and patent utilization, and provides rewards to the proposers, such as ‘job invention compensation.’

Last year, inventors who developed the ‘Weather Information Providing System and Method’ and the ‘Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell and Its Manufacturing Method’ received rewards of 32 million KRW and 25 million KRW respectively, continuously encouraging researchers’ inventive activities.

A Hyundai Motor Company and Kia official stated, “Through the Invention Day event, we will continue to foster an environment where researchers can propose creative ideas and persistently strive to discover key new technologies that will contribute to new growth areas such as future mobility.”

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