System Design Laboratory

Established in 2013, the System Design Laboratory in the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering at Seoul National University in the Republic of Korea is led by Professor Myung-Il Roh, where researchers are studying the world’s leading design technologies for the design of ships and offshore structures. The laboratory’s research areas can be summarized into four categories.

The first area is Optimum Design. We are studying various research projects aimed at maximizing the performance of ships and offshore structures, minimizing costs, and reducing risks by formulating given problems as optimization problems and solving them using optimization algorithms.

The second area is Simulation-Based Design. We are studying a variety of research projects aimed at advancing design methods through computational mechanics and simulation, including the development of novel methods and the improvement of existing ones. In addition, we are studying a variety of research projects that combine optimization, simulation, and computational techniques to produce more robust and integrated design results. In other words, we are also studying simulation methods that combine analysis, visualization, and hardware.

The third area is Computational Design. We are studying various research projects that use the latest artificial intelligence technologies to automate design tasks—traditionally performed manually or semi-automatically by humans—through computerization.

The final area is Autonomous Navigation Technologies. We are studying autonomous navigation technologies for smart ships. Specifically, we are studying cutting-edge technologies such as the detection, localization, and tracking of maritime obstacles; multi-sensor fusion; collision risk assessment and collision-avoidance path generation; and automatic berthing.

Finally, our laboratory operates an Ocean Simulation Facility. We are conducting research on VR/AR technologies to validate our design results in a realistic environment, and we have built our own simulator. VR/AR technology creates a realistic representation of the real world on a computer, while simulators faithfully replicate on-site movements for users. This simulator is designed to be versatile, making it extremely useful for a wide range of problems.

You can find detailed information about our laboratory on our website. Please feel free to contact us at any time if you have any questions. We are committed to developing world-class design technologies for ships and offshore structures. Thank you.