Sixteen students from Incheon National University reached the top of the world in an international robot competition on their first appearance. The achievement came from students of different majors joining forces as a single team.
Incheon National University's "TEAM INU" won the Smart Manufacturing League (SML) at "RoboCup 2026 Incheon," held at Songdo Convensia in Incheon on the 2nd of this month, with 210 points. The team beat second-place Singapore, which finished with 137 points, by a margin of 73 points. The stage featured eight teams from eight countries, including Japan, the Netherlands and Germany.
Success came down to the "slide multi-loading system" the students designed themselves. Abandoning the conventional method of moving blocks one at a time, they chose an approach that stacks multiple blocks neatly onto a slide and carries them all at once. Work time was reduced and accuracy improved. In the SML, mobile robots actually carry out industrial-site missions ranging from object recognition and autonomous driving to precise manipulation, assembly and loading.
Noteworthy is the team's composition. Students from the departments of Bio-Robotics System Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Embedded Systems Engineering came together, each bringing their own strengths. In effect, they divided the various domains of robotics technology—such as vision, control and system integration—among their respective majors. Guidance was overseen by Professor Park Ki-won of the Department of Bio-Robotics System Engineering, with support from Professor Kim Woo-yong and Professors Lee Myung-hoon and Lee Dong-gil of the Department of Electrical Engineering.
"It was a comprehensive project that solved real industrial-site problems with robotics technology," Park said. "Students standing at the top of the world after breaking down the walls between majors is the fruit of convergence education."
This achievement was also a test of the local talent development strategy that Incheon National University has been pursuing. The team prepared for the competition with support from the city of Incheon and the university's RISE project group. "This is a case that showed the potential of the workforce training for regional strategic industries and the practice-oriented education we have promoted through the I-RISE project," President Lee In-jae said. "We will advance a system for training AI robotics talent that can be deployed to industrial sites immediately."
