VOL.38 · March 30 · 2018
ETRI will contribute to the economic growth of Korea with research accomplishments in ICT and come closer to the nation’s citizens to ignite their interest in science. ETRI is with the citizens through advanced ICT to realize what is imagined, change the world with ICT, and open a bright future with ICT.
Headline News
In collaboration with KAIST and Institute for Information & Communications Technology Promotion(IITP), ETRI is implementing a customized support program to help small or medium-sized ICT equipment enterprises to enter the global market.
ETRI has experts having years of substantial experience in entering international markets through international joint research, industry and market analysis studies, and global collaborations.
On the basis of their experience, the global market entrance support program for small and medium-sized enterprises was prepared, wherein the program includes company discovery, coaching, and matching plans. Once a promising company is discovered, ETRI serves as a think tank of the company. Expert researchers in the ICT market evaluate the technologies and products of the company and prepare a strategic plan for global partnership.
Choi Byeong-cheol, the head of the ETRI Industry & Strategy Research Group, stated, "The global business patterns of the small and medium-sized enterprises are gradually developed through the ETRI global market support program. These efforts will help more small and medium-sized enterprises in Korea to take new opportunities in the overseas markets in the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia in preparation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
The Protocol Engineering Center of the ETRI Future Technology & Strategy Research Laboratory has planned and held the 「IDX Tech Seminar」 series from last year to take efficient and proactive actions toward the upcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution as a leading national R&D institute. In 2018, the IDX Tech Seminar was held by selecting various core technologies to understand and review individual technical issues and to visualize the shape of the ETRI IDX.
In the 2018 IDX Tech Seminar, Park Jae-hyeon, the executive director of SK Telecom, was invited as a speaker, and he gave a talk entitled, "Present and Future of Block Chain Platform.' The speaker developed the Samsung Pay and ChatOn Message service previously in Samsung Electronics, and conducted projects in SK Telecom such as Sharing Economy Platform Hidden, and is currently writing columns about block chain and cryptocurrency on the Electronic Times and other journals.
Following the development of the LTE small-cell base station SW in 2016, ETRI announced on February 7 that it successfully developed a SW supporting LTE-TDD dual connectivity.
These technologies are evaluated as core technologies for future 5G communication through upgrading of conventional SW technologies, since they may be applied to buildings, stadiums, and homes.
The technologies are suitable for the locations where the traffic is rapidly increased, such as stadiums, department stores, disaster-stricken areas, and military camps. The small cells may be attached, like a wireless LAN AP, to walls inside and outside buildings, utility poles, and communication antennas, or may be carried in the form of a backpack. The research team explained that the size of the small-cell was minimized as the size of a wireless LAN AP for indoor purposes and as the size of a shoe box for outdoor purposes. The small-cell backpack weighs about 10 kg.
These accomplishments will remove the communication shadows and blind spots between cells, and will help to develop independent technologies by replacing the conventional products from other countries.
ETRI successfully performed live broadcasting of PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games with UHD broadcasting transmission technology. The ETRI's ATSC 3.0-based Layered Division Multiplexing(LDM) technology was applied for the UHD and mobile HD live broadcasting in cooperation with the US CBC.
The technology applied to the present live broadcasting was the LDM technology where two or more broadcasting signals are simultaneously transmitted after they are divided into different layers, one channel for UHD broadcasting and another for mobile HDTV. The present technology was finally determined as the ATSC 3.0, the North America Protocol, in January 2016.
South Korea is the only country in the world where the terrestrial UHD broadcasting of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games was provided free of charge. In other countries, such as the US, viewers may enjoy UHD broadcasting of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games through paid broadcasting services, such as cable TV, IPTV, and satellite broadcasting. The technology developed by ETRI enabled the viewers in the US to watch the UHD broadcasting on terrestrial broadcasting TV.
Kim, Heung-muk, the head of the ETRI Media Transmission Research Group, stated, "The LDM technology plays an essential role in North America, the largest market of UHD broadcasting, so that our technology may hold a dominant position in the world's ATSC 3.0 broadcasting market where the competition is very hard globally." As the next-generation ATSC 3.0 broadcasting technology spreads more, the technological license fees through the core protocol patent will be increased, because ETRI's LDM technology should be applied to all the TVs sold in each country adopting the ATSC 3.0 broadcasting protocol.
The ETRI's LDM technology received the Technology Innovation Award at the NAB Show 2015 for the contribution to the technological development, as well as the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and many other best paper awards.
ETRI successfully developed live UWV broadcasting technology that maximizes the feelings of presence through wide UHD panoramic videos.
In February 19, during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, ETRI applied the technology to perform live broadcasting of NANTA performance, Korea's representative culture show, held at Gangneung Art Center, to the ICT Lounge at the Incheon International Airport with UWV live videos.
The UWV technology applied to the live broadcasting of the performance is a panoramic video technology that maintains the UHD quality on the multi-panel wide screen(15 m wide and 4 m high) including 48 panels, which was three times as large as the common UHD screens. This technology may have ripple effects on the industry as it is applied to various fields including sports games, concerts, and exhibitions.
The UWV live broadcasting technology produces wide panoramic videos by naturally combining large videos shot by three UHD cameras and provides the produced panoramic videos on a real-time basis. The cores of the technology are the technologies for acquiring, generating, transmitting, and playing the videos.
In November last year, ETRI installed the UWV playing system by using 48 panels in the ICT Lounge at the Incheon International Airport. The public relations videos about PyeongChang Winter Olympics and Republic of Korea played on the UWV system were favorably received by many viewers including foreign visitors to Korea. This time, the research team performed live broadcasting of a NANTA performance held at Gangneung Art Center on February 19 to the ICT Lounge at the Incheon International Airport by applying the UWV live broadcasting technology.
In the course of developing the technology, the research team applied 30 domestic and international patents including two standard essential patents. In addition, the research team transferred 10 technological items to relevant companies. ETRI will apply the related technologies to various areas by conducting a study for visualizing a space itself beyond a limited visual angle.
Following the provision of gigabyte Wi-Fi to the subway in Seoul, ETRI successfully demonstrated the transmission of 5 Gbps Wi-Fi to a running bus.
Disclosing that ETRI's technology is a result of a 5G joint research of Korea and EU, ETRI has demonstrated the 5G Wi-Fi transmission to the public in the ICT Public Relations Hall in Gangneung since February 2.
On February 21, ETRI announced that it successfully demonstrated in Yulgok-ro, Gangreung, the super-multiview display media transmission service that enables viewing of 3D videos without glasses on a running bus by applying the 5 Gbps mobile hot-spot network-enhanced (MHN-E) technology.
The MHN-E technology applied to the demonstration was first open to the public through this demonstration as an advanced version of the MHN technology that was successfully verified in advance in Seoul subway line No. 8 for the provision of Gbps Wi-Fi service at the end of last year.
The data transmission speed of the MHN-E technology is more than four times faster than that of the conventional MHN technology. As the bandwidth was extended, and the multiple input, multiple output (MINO) antenna technology for increasing the data transmission efficiency was introduced, the data transmission speed was enhanced to a maximum of 5 Gbps, which is about four times higher than that of the conventional MHN technology (1.25 Gbps).
In the demonstration held on February 21, a bus running in the city of Gangneung naturally transmitted and received videos through the MHN-E technology that the ETRI research team successfully developed. The research team explained that the present technology may enable about 2,500 passengers on buses within a radius of 500 m to watch HD videos simultaneously if applied to an expressway.
Chung Hyun-kyu, the head of the ETRI 5G Giga Service Research Laboratory, stated, "The result of the Korea-EU joint research was well displayed and demonstrated in the ICT Public Relations Hall in Gangreung. The public demonstration may serve as an opportunity to make Korea's advanced ICT be known to the world and help the related companies to find an opportunity to enter the international markets.
ETRI firstly developed a fabric-type waterproof sensor with high electric conductivity that may maintain the water resistance and conductivity even after being bent and pressed several times, as the sensor was developed by combing graphene and carbon nano-tubes and coating a cotton fabric with the resulting composite.
ETRI developed a fabric type complex sensor that may measure pressure and strain simultaneously by dipping a fabric, such as cotton fiber, into a solution prepared by mixing graphene and carbon nanotubes and then drying the resulting fabric.
The research team also successfully fabricated a motion sensor for detecting finger motions by applying the prepared sensor to a cotton glove. The results of the study were published on February 8 in Applied Materials & Interfaces(AMI) Online, which is an international journal published by the American Chemical Society in the field of nanotechnology.
The research team stated that the future plan is to apply the developed sensor to gloves of wearable materials so that the gloves may be prepared for robotic hands and provided to patients wearing prosthetic arms or legs due to a disability at the hands or feet.
Dr. Choi Chun-gi of the Emerging Devices Research Group in the ETRI ICT Materials & Components Research Laboratory stated, "The excellent sensing performance of the complex sensor was also verified, because the measurement procedure was carried out within several seconds while the sensor maintained linearity depending on the measurement range."
The first author of the research article is Dr. Kim Seong-jun in ETRI, and Dr. Choi Chun-gi is the corresponding author. Dr. Ahn, Gi-seok of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology(KRICT) joined the research as a joint corresponding author. In addition, Dr. Song Wu-seok, Dr. Lee Yun-sik of ETRI, Dr. Min Bok-gi, and Mondal in the Ph. D course at UST also participated in the study.
ETRI now has a plan to apply the developed strain-pressure complex sensor by transferring the technology to manufacturers of wearable sensors, prosthetic arms or legs, beds, and automobile parts for commercialization of the technology.
ETRI successfully developed an 'optical synapse-mimic device' that artificially reproduces the synapses of neurons. This laid a foundation for the development of a nerve-mimic optical computing technology that allows simultaneous memorizing and thinking(calculation) like a human brain.
On February 28, ETRI announced that it successfully developed the core technology for an optical synapse-mimic device by combining graphene, a 2D semiconductor material drawing much attention as a ultra-thin film new material of a nanometer thickness, with optical communication technology, and published a research article on February 17 in Applied Materials & Interfaces(AMI) Online, which is an international journal published by the American Chemical Society in the field of nanotechnology.
The area for data-saving and the area for calculating coexist in a human brain. However, a computer has separated parts for data-saving and calculating. If the parts for data-saving and calculating can coexist in a computer like a human brain, information may be rapidly processed and transmitted while performing calculation and data-saving simultaneously. This is the principle of optical computing that mimics the human nervous system in the brain.
Kim Seung-huan, the head of the ETRI Bio-Medical IT Convergence Research Division, stated, "The developed optical synapse-mimic device will be combined with the conventional ultra-fast optical communication technologies to develop a nerve-mimic optical computing technology to imitate the biological brain functions with artificial optical technologies."
The research team revealed that the final goal is to fabricate a self-thinking chip, stating that the existing robots that can think are programmed robots whereas the future robots will be able to really think independently."
Dr. Kim Jin-tae of ETRI is the first author of the research article, and Dr. Choi Hong-gyu also joined the research. The co-authors are Dr. Choi Yong-seok and Professor Jo Jeong-ho of Sungkyunkwan University.
Photo News
On February 6, Ahn Cheol-su, the representative of the People's Party, and Yoo Seung-min, the representative of the Bareun Party, visited ETRI with key party executives, viewing the ICT R&D work and listening to relevant explanations. They also had a meeting with leading researchers in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and a press conference.
On February 19, ETRI held an algorithm conference on data processing at the ground stations of the geostationary satellite as well as relevant technological applications. Researchers from ETRI and five universities participated in the conference, presenting and discussing research accomplishments for the cloud and precipitation group, the radiation and aerosol group, the video and image groups, and the atmosphere and aviation group. The conference also included sessions for presenting the five year plan and the IoT plan, followed by a final comprehensive discussion session.
