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Sung Kim

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91101
FORMER MEMBER

Sung Kyun Kim, Ph.D.

Robotics Technologist

Biography

Sung Kyun Kim is a Robotics Technologist with a research focus on functional autonomy of robotic systems in stochastic environments. Specifically, he is interested in sequential decision making under motion/sensing uncertainty where the planner should take into account imperfect control and state estimation.

Sung has broad experience in robotics, including surgical manipulator design, redundant arm-hand system control, and mobile manipulation planning. At JPL, he currently works on sampling autonomy for the Europa Lander mission, which requires a higher level of autonomy and efficiency due to its limited lifetime and communication capabilities. He is also leading the efforts for autonomy development for multi-robot exploration in large unknown environments, in search of scientific interests or possible threats to human teams.

[ Personal Website ]

Education

Ph.D. in Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, USA, 2019
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, 2009
B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Korea, 2007

Professional Experience

Robotics Technologist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA, 2019–Present
Research Scientist, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, 2009–2013

Research Interests

  • Planning under uncertainty
  • Search-based motion planning
  • Robotic manipulation
  • Planetary exploration

Publications

2023
  1. S. Moon, O. Peltzer, J. Ott, S. Kim, A. Agha-Mohammadi, "Semantics-Aware Mission Adaptation for Autonomous Exploration in Urban Environments," 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Detroit, MI, USA, pp. 2065-2070, 01 October 2023.
  2. C. Denniston, O. Peltzer, J. Ott, S. Moon, S. Kim, G. Sukhatme, M. Kochenderfer, M. Schwager, A. Agha-mohammadi, "Fast and Scalable Signal Inference for Active Robotic Source Seeking," 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), London, United Kingdom, pp. 7909-7915, 29 May 2023.
  3. J. Bowkett, D. Kim, J. Nash, D. Moreno, M. Gildner, R. Thakker, K. Wehage, S. Kim, A. Brinkman, B. Emanuel, J. Edlund, B. Ridge, A. Jain, and P. Backes, "Demonstration of Autonomous Sampling Techniques in an Icy Moon Terrestrial Analog," 2023 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1-5, 04 March 2023.
2021
  1. Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi, et al., "NeBula: Quest for Robotic Autonomy in Challenging Environments; TEAM CoSTAR at the DARPA Subterranean Challenge," Journal of Field Robotics, 21 March 2021.
  2. J. Bowkett, J. Nash, D. Inkyu Kim, S. Kim, R. Thakker, A. Brinkman, Y. Cheng, R. Wilson, C. Lim, A. Gaut, A. Jain, M. Gildner, B. Emanuel, P. Backes, "Functional Autonomy Challenges in Sampling for an Europa Lander Mission," 2021 IEEE Aerospace Conference (50100), Big Sky, MT, USA, pp. 1-8, 06 March 2021.