Pukyong National University

Pukyong National University Selected to Lead KRW 7 Billion R&D Project by the Korea AeroSpace Administration

― Five-Year Project to ‘Advance AI-Based Aerospace Research and Development’

― Development of a CubeSat for Marine Environmental Monitoring and Acquisition of Core AI Technologies to Begin in Earnest

Pukyong National University (President Sang-Hoon Bae) has been selected as the lead research institution for the Space Technology Innovation Talent Development (R&D)―Advancement of AI-Based Aerospace Research and Development Projects, a major national research and development initiative promoted by the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA).

The large-scale national project will receive a total of KRW 7 billion in government R&D funding over five years, from this year through 2030. Through the project, Pukyong National University will lead next-generation research and development integrating AI with space technologies, while cultivating specialized professionals in the field.

Professor Yang-Won Lee of the Major of Satellite Information Convergence Engineering at Pukyong National University will serve as the principal investigator. The Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) and space startup Nara Space Technology will participate as partner institutions, forming an industry-academia-research collaboration network. Pukyong National University’s research team will include Professor Yang-Won Lee, along with Professors Chul-Woong Choi, Jin-Soo Kim, Han-Lim Lee, Wook-Gyo Jeong, Joon-Hwa Chi, Moon-Gab Joo, Ji-Yeol Ryu, and other experts in remote sensing, big data, and information and communications technology.

The project’s core objective is to establish a Space+AI convergence talent development platform for marine environmental monitoring using CubeSats. The Pukyong National University consortium plans to directly design and manufacture an engineering model of a CubeSat specialized for marine environmental monitoring and secure core AI technologies capable of analyzing satellite-collected data in real time.

To achieve this goal, the research team will develop an onboard AI inference engine and FPGA-based real-time image processing technology; marine remote-sensing preprocessing technologies such as atmospheric correction, sunglint removal, reflectance normalization, and spatiotemporal missing-data reconstruction; AI models for deriving marine ecological indicators, including chlorophyll-a, total suspended solids (TSS), colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and surface currents; and approximately 20 core AI technologies for marine environmental monitoring, including the detection of harmful algal blooms, marine debris, port air pollution, and vessels engaged in illegal fishing.

In particular, the consortium plans to apply multimodal AI convergence technologies that combine existing satellite imagery from sources such as Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope with data from its own CubeSat. This approach is expected to improve the quality of low-cost CubeSat data and establish a next-generation foundation for the more precise monitoring and utilization of marine environmental information.

Having been selected for the project through competition with leading universities nationwide, the Pukyong National University consortium has demonstrated its research competitiveness in satellite information engineering. Going forward, it plans to lead the development of self-reliant core technologies in aerospace and AI-based remote sensing by developing a CubeSat for marine environmental monitoring and securing foundational AI technologies. The consortium also aims to establish itself as a hub for cultivating interdisciplinary professionals who will lead the New Space era.