School of Mechanical Engineering Professor Joo Sang-woo selected for the ‘Leading Research Center’ project for the Daegu, Gyeongbuk and Gangwon regions
Received 12.2 billion KRW in national funding to establish the ‘Autonomous Vehicle Parts and Materials Green Technology Leading Research Center’
Expected to construct a ‘core parts development-corporate technology transfer-commercialization’ system for future cars
[September 2, 2019]
YU (President Sur Gil-soo) will lead the development of ‘green technologies’, which is a core future industry.
The green technology-based research project based on green technologies of Professor Joo Sang-woo’s team at the YU School of Mechanical Engineering was selected as a ‘regional innovation leading research center’ project hosted by the National Research Foundation. In this project, Professors Park Joo-hyun (Electrical Engineering), Jung Ho-yeol (Information Communication Engineering), Kang Mi-sook (Chemistry), Kim Hye-gyeong (Material Engineering) and Kang Seok-won (Automobile Engineering) from YU and Professor Jeon Sang-min (Chemical Engineering) and Noh Joon-seok (Mechanical Engineering) from POSTECH participated as core researchers.
With the selection of this project, YU will receive a total of 12.2 billion KRW in funding from September of this year to February 2026 to develop autonomous vehicle parts and materials technologies based on green technologies. YU will establish the ‘Autonomous Vehicle Parts and Materials Green Technology Leading Research Center’ to conduct research on heat, humidity, and lightweight to improve the system efficiency of autonomous vehicles and conduct research on driving environment awareness and control parts. It will also take part in projects for fostering expert personnel and they are thus expected to construct a sustainable development system for the local industry while fostering local human resources.
Green technologies create materials with excellent economic efficiency based on the structures and functions of life found in nature, and it is an innovative technology that is eco-friendly and that can prevent environmental pollution. According to the US consulting firm FBEI, it is an industry with great potential where the market is expected to grow up to 1 trillion USD by 2025. Currently, the US, Germany and Japan are focusing on the green technology industry as a new national growth engine industry.
Professor Joo Sang-woo, who is supervising this project, said, “We are planning to analyze and develop all parts that can be applied to the autonomous, smart and eco-friendly vehicle sectors, which are all future growth engine industries, in order to gain platform technology assets in advanced.” He added, “Our goal is to construct a smart leading research center with a system where the corresponding technologies can be transfered to local businesses for commercialization.”
The parts and materials platform technologies that will be developed through this research project can be used not only for automobiles, but also in the manufacturing sector such as smart factories, as well as in other general industries, and therefore, it is expected to create significant added value such as creating jobs and activating the economy, not to mention the development of the local industries.
YU President Sur gil-soo said, “YU has recently been selected consecutively to oversee the HuStar project that the local government is focusing on. This shows that YU is being recognized for its expertise and knowhow in education and research in the future core industry sectors such as future automobiles and water.” He added, “This can determine the future of the local society, so our university will take the initiative for the relevant institutes such as the local government and businesses to gather their capacities.”
Meanwhile, the ‘Local Innovation Leading Research Center Project’ is a project that aims to gather the capacities of innovative bodies in the region focusing on local universities to create new jobs by fostering talented local human resources based on the leading research center and to spread research outcomes to improving the competence of local businesses. This project is supported by the Ministry of Science and CIT and is hosted by the National Research Foundation. A total of four regions in the nation are being supported such as Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam, Daegu-Gyeongbuk-Gangwon, Gwangju-Jeonbuk-Jeonnam-Jeju, and Daejeon-Chungbuk-Chungnam-Sejong, and YU wa selected as the supervising university for the Daeg-Gyeongbuk-Gangwon region.
