This award supports a planning visit to enable Dr. Paul Oh of Drexel University and Dr. Dennis Hong of Virginia Institute of Technology, together with four U.S. graduate and undergraduate students, to meet with Dr. Jun Oh of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Dr. Jae Song of Korea University. The timing of the visit will coincide with the annual Robot Week in Seoul, permitting the U.S. team to also meet with a large number of Korea's roboticists from academia, industry and government agencies. The visit will help develop a concrete plan for collaborative research on humanoid robotics. In particular, the visit will facilitate the U.S. team's efforts to construct an adult-size biped humanoid and legged walker. The long-term goals of the collaborative research include using humanoids: to validate hypotheses on human balance disorders, like Parkinson's disease, that involve head-torso locomotion and vestibular-ocular reflex; to identify legged locomotion designs to help ambulate the elderly or traverse rough terrain; and as a platform to gain insight on teaching multi-disciplinary international design teams. It is anticipated that this project will provide unique training and educational opportunities for U.S. students to obtain global research experience, and that the collaborations will benefit the participating institutions in both countries.
