The Korean Agency for Technology & Standards of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy hosted the 2004 Intelligent Robot Competition. The Robot Competition is the first event sponsored by the governmental organization. The contest aims to foster creativity and technology through friendly matches between college students, their task being to construct a robot under a common set of rules and a given time limit. CNU
s student team named "X-man" participated in the contest with their robot "Hermes"and was awarded the bronze prize from the director of Korea Testing Laboratory. The team "X-man," led by So In-hae (junior student of the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Academic Supervisor: Prof. Im Young-chul), created a robot which could be controlled by micro-controllers. The robot is constructed and operated to avoid barriers by using ultrasonic sensors. It can move to any directions owing to its omniwheels, which are capable of transferring heavy loads on omni directional powered transfer tables. "X-man" team members belong to a student club "Knuri", organized by the electrical engineering students. The competition was divided into two categories: household vacuum robots and humanoid robots. Through the preliminary screening procedure, twenty teams were selected and competed at the first round. Top eight teams competed again in the final round and the award winners were selected. The contest objective is to create a task-oriented robot to autonomously vacuum a typical household room. The robot should be able to navigate around ordinary objects without damaging them, while providing a level of cleaning comparable to a manually operated vacuum. An official of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said, "With this event as momentum, we expect to establish the national standards for evaluating performances and safety of intelligent robots and promote the commercialization of the intelligent robot technology in the near future." Some large electronic companies participated in the contest and presented their robots as contestants. In the competition category of household vacuum robots created by business entities, Samsung Gwangju Electronics has won the gold prize with its robot 'Krubo.'