Kitae Kim

Purdue University • Doctor of Philosophy • 2021 — Present

Korea University • Master of Engineering • 2019 — 2021

Korea University • Bachelor of Science • 2013 — 2019

Sientis | Nokia AIMS at Nokia Bell Labs
Software Engineering for Robotics Co-Op • January 2025 — Present

During my internship, I will develop an optical flow-based multi-object tracking algorithm to identify and track landmarks in a large-scale indoor warehouse environment. Also, I will design and implement a factor graph-based SLAM algorithm. This SLAM solution integrates multi-object tracking outputs and visual-inertial odometry for robust drone navigation in the warehouse environment.

P-AgNav: Range View-Based Autonomous Navigation System for Cornfields • 2025

Kitae Kim, Aarya Deb, David J. Cappelleri, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) (DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2025.3541335)

P-AgSLAM: In-Row and Under-Canopy SLAM for Agricultural Monitoring in Cornfields • 2024

Kitae Kim, Aarya Deb, David J. Cappelleri, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) (DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2024.3386466)

Deep learning-based Leaf Detection for Robotic Physical Sampling with P-AgBot • 2023

Aarya Deb, Kitae Kim, David J. Cappelleri, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (DOI: 10.1109/IROS55552.2023.10341516)

Frequent and Automatic Update of Lane-Level HD Maps with a Large Amount of Crowdsourced Data Acquired from Buses and Taxis in Seoul • 2022

Minwoo Cho, Kitae Kim, Soohyun Cho, Seung-Mo Cho, Woojin Chung, Sensors (DOI: 10.3390/s23010438)

P-AgBot: In-Row & Under-Canopy Agricultural Robot for Monitoring and Physical Sampling • 2022

Kitae Kim, Aarya Deb, David J Cappelleri, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) (DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2022.3187275)

HD Map Update for Autonomous Driving With Crowdsourced Data • 2021

Kitae Kim, Soohyun Cho, Woojin Chung, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) (DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2021.3060406)

Point of Interest Matching Method between Map using Geometric Characteristics • 2020

Kitae Kim, Soohyun Cho, Woojin Chung, the 15th Korea Robotics Society Annual Conference

Limitations of 3D LiDAR Applications for Autonomous Vehicles under the Consideration of the Uber Pedestrian Accident • 2019

Kitae Kim, Soohyun Cho, Woojin Chung, the 16th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)

IoT4Ag: The Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture
National Science Foundation (NSF) • 2021 — Present

Our Mission is to create and translate to practice Internet of Thing (IoT) technologies for precision agriculture and to train and educate a diverse workforce that will address the societal grand challenge of food, energy, and water security for decades to come. In this research, I am focusing on developing autonomous ground-based robot which can navigate autonomously and do physical sampling for crop analysis in large-scale cornfields.

Development of High Definition Map for Autonomous Vehicles Update Technology
SK Telecom • 2019 — 2021

Our goal was to develop a technology that keeps high definition (HD) maps for autonomous vehicles up to date by using a large amount of low-cost low-quality crowdsourced data. I designed two main algorithms for various types of landmarks in the road environment by MATLAB and C++: Observation Learner module and Landmark Update module. My methods make it possible to determine which landmarks need to be registered in the updated maps. Throughout this project, I could realize the importance of accurate map management in the field of autonomous driving.

Design Self-driving Harvest-Carrying Robot in Greenhouse Environments
Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (IPET) • 2019 — 2021

Development of robot intelligence technology for mobility with learning capability toward robust and seamless indoor and outdoor autonomous navigation
Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) • 2019 — 2020

The autonomous navigation system with self-growing intelligence for the driver-less car that operates safely in crowded street environments
National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) • 2019 — 2020

Verification of the Performance of 3D Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors based on the Pedestrian Accident by Uber Autonomous Vehicle
Undergraduate Thesis • 2018

IEEE/RAS Member Support Program Award • IROS2023 • 2023

Principal Candidate for a 2021 Fulbright Graduate Student Program Award • U.S. Dept. of State • 2021

Best Academic Awards • Korea University • 2017, 2018