The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on the 18th that a research team led by Professor Shim Hyun-cheol of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering ranked third in the Drone Championship League (DCL) of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL), which was held on the 12th with the support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government.
The competition, held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center Marina venue, featured 14 teams selected through preliminary rounds last fall, all competing for superiority. Among them, eight teams advanced to the semifinals for the fastest flight time, and KAIST reached the finals alongside TU Delft from the Netherlands, the UAE's Technology Innovation Institute (TII), and the Czech Technical University (CTU).
In the finals, TU Delft took first place, with the Technology Innovation Institute of the UAE in second, and KAIST achieving third overall in the world rankings. Notably, KAIST's research team secured second place in the world's first-ever simultaneous autonomous flight of drones and also took second in drag racing, where two drones start facing each other. The team demonstrated exceptional skills based on their self-developed video-based positioning technology and high-mobility flight control technology, earning a prize of $105,000 (approximately 149 million won).
Professor Shim Hyun-cheol stated, “Despite the competition suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the reorganization of the research team resulting in a hiatus in research, and the challenging conditions of finding suitable environments for high-speed flight experiments, we were able to complete independent positioning and control technologies and ultimately achieve valuable results by surpassing some of the world's leading research teams,” and added, “We will create world-class results with overwhelming technology in upcoming international competitions.”