UNIST researchers are going to design autonomous vehicles for future generations. The team has been selected to lead the exterior design styling of Hyundai Motor’s autonomous vehicles.
On April 9, the School of Design and Human Engineering at UNIST has announced that its team, led by Professor Yunwoo Jeong, has been selected. ‘Exterior styling of autonomous vehicles for i-generation’ will be the theme of this project. Starting this April, the project will go on for over the course of eight months.
According to the team, the term ‘iGeneration’ refers to future generations born between 1995 and 2012, who are familiar with mobile technologies, like smartphones and social media. The design team plans to design the exterior of autonomous vehicles that reflect this generation’s lifestyle and culture. By collecting and analyzing hashtags used in social media, the team will work on exterior designs for driverless cars. They will make sure the design concept should match the keywords that reflect this generation.
For the project, the Hyundai Motor Group selects one university per the theme. While instead of art colleges, UNIST has been selected to collaborate with Hyundai Motor Group in exterior design for their autonomous vehicles.
“This is the first time in history where an institute for science and technology and a local automobile company collaborate together to carry out exterior design styling,” says Professor Jeong. “UNIST’s accumulated design competence, along with the laboratory experiences, specializing in mobility design, such as automobiles, helped us win this project.”
Also, Professor Jeong and his design team received an iF Design Award in 2019 for their innovative mobility concept, called ChaiseClaire. It is a new form of wheelchair that revolutionizes the existing wheelchairs that are heavy and difficult for the user to push. The team used a combination of graphene and mesh material, which help them to reduce ChaiseClaire’s weight. For user convenience, the ChaiseClaire also comes equipped with an in-wheel motor that assists the movement of the wheelchair as the user pushes wheels.
Besides, Professor Jeong is well-known for designing S. Korea’s first driverless bus, namely ‘Zero Shuttle.’ He also designed a modular four-wheeled electric bicycle, Hyperloop System Innovation, robotic baby crib, entitled ‘Baby King, and also awarded for some of them.
