The KABLO team of the SW·AI Education Center at Korea Aerospace University (KAU) won the Grand Prize at the 2025 SW Talent Festival Outstanding Project Competition. The event was hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and jointly organized by the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) and the SW-centered University Council. Students from 58 SW-centered universities nationwide participated to showcase software- and AI-based innovations. The festival was held on November 27 at Seoul Dragon City in Yongsan, Seoul.

The KABLO team received the top award for developing a vision-based guidance and control technology for low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and a testbed utilizing Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation (HILS), which integrates real hardware with software for testing. The technology was highly praised for enabling precise flight control without expensive equipment and allowing experiments in a safe, realistic environment.

Vision-based guidance and control uses vision sensors such as cameras to recognize the surrounding environment and autonomously adjust the flight path—an essential field in autonomous flight research. By integrating this technology with a HILS environment, the KABLO team established a foundation for validating control algorithms directly under realistic conditions. This approach was evaluated as significantly reducing risks during development and testing, improving experimental efficiency, and expanding potential industrial applications.

The award-winning team consists of students Ho-Seon Gi, Dae-Won Kang, and Min-Seo Choi from the Department of AI Autonomous Systems Engineering; Jun-Su Song from the Department of Software; and Ja-Woon Cho from the Aviation Transportation major. Under the guidance of Professor In-Mo Jang, the team successfully combined aerospace engineering and software capabilities to produce a practical and impactful outcome.

Since being selected as a SW-centered University in 2021, Korea Aerospace University has strengthened specialized software education and research in the aerospace field and has continued to foster industry-ready SW talent. This achievement is considered a strong example of the university’s advancing education and research system.