Creative development by the students of the Department of Electronic Engineering leads to fruitful reward

The X-Corps Festival, organized by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Council of X-Corps, celebrates the outstanding achievements of the research team that have participated in the field-specific engineering talent training project. This year’s festival was held online on December 4, 2020, and out of the 730 teams that participated, grand prizes were given to four teams: Seoul National University’s ‘SF’ team, Inha University’s ‘Hyperion’, Hannam University’s ‘Onm’ team, along with Hanyang University’s ‘Grasp’ team. Team Grasp was awarded for their development of highly-sensitive silicon robot fingers which can be used in surgical processes.

 

The research for team Grasp centered around devising silicon-based artificial robotic fingers to help aid the surgical processes. (Photo courtesy of Jung)
The research for team Grasp centered around devising silicon-based artificial robotic fingers to help aid the surgical processes. (Photo courtesy of Jung)

Jung Hoon-jin (Department of Electronic Engineering, 4th year), a member of Grasp, said he entered the contest because he wanted to expand on his research on soft robots, which he was going to submit as his graduation project. As soft robotics study the way in which living organisms move and adapt to their surroundings, Jung says he wanted to develop a highly controllable grip force for surgical robot fingers to allow them to move like human fingers. “The main goal of our project involved devising silicon surgical robot fingers, instead of metal fingers, to lessen the tissue damage and significantly enhance the control,” said Jung.

In order to invent such a revolutionary item, Jung said that for the nine months leading up to the date of the festival, the team designed and built flexible artificial fingers, selected and inserted tactile sensors, implemented read-out circuit for tactile sensor output signal collection, and wrote microcontroller code for artificial finger control and sensor signal collection.

“There were many trial and errors periods because the research was conducted mainly by undergraduate students. However, with the help of professors, industry mentor, and senior researcher in the lab, the idea was further embodied and we ended up getting satisfactory result in the contest,” said Jung. Kim Jae-hoon (Department of Electronic Engineering, 4th year), another member of the team, said, “I was skeptical about the entire progress of the research, especially because the research aim did not align with my career path. However, when we first made a sample artificial finger without any leakages, I realized that we had done the right thing.”

 

Soft fingers were connected to joint-like machine parts to increase the range of motion of the fingers. (Photo courtesy of Jung)
Soft fingers were connected to joint-like machine parts to increase the range of motion of the fingers. (Photo courtesy of Jung)

The undergraduate members in the team including Jung and Kim were supervised by their team leader Seo Ho-jun (Department of Electronic Engineering, Doctor’s program) for the research. Seo, who had supervised the team and provided mental support, said that, “My role within the team centered on providing the students with the necessary equipment for the research and educating them about the theory of soft robots. I guided them into the right direction, while the students solved the problems themselves.”

Winning the grand prize as the fruits of their efforts, Jung said that he was grateful that he was able to spend the last year of his university life doing what he wanted, with the support of X-Corps industry. Kim hoped that such a business be advertised more so that more undergraduates, without having to go to graduate school, can experience advanced research process. Seo also thanked the professors who have complimented his team’s work, and hoped that many more students utilize X-Corps program to study more about their major during their undergraduate years.

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