Jungil Ham

Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical and Robotics Engineering

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Gwangju, South Korea. 61005

I work on spatial AI for robots — robust visual localization, mapping, and state estimation grounded in the geometry of the world — from the International Space Station to aerial and field robots.

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Affiliations & Collaborations
GIST NASA

Jungil Ham is a Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical and Robotics Engineering at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), in the Machine Perception and Intelligence Lab (MPIL) advised by Pyojin Kim.

He designed highly accurate visual compasses leveraging structural priors in stair-dominant environments and digital twins of the International Space Station (ISS). During his master’s studies, he also led the end-to-end development of a pedestrian-following aerial robot, from drone design and fabrication to perception and control algorithms.

Jungil has conducted research through internships at the Robotics Innovatory (Robotory) at Sungkyunkwan University with Prof. Hyouk Ryeol Choi, and at the Center for Intelligent & Interactive Robotics at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) with Dr. Jung Min Park, where he broadened his perspective on robotics systems, perception, and applied research. He also collaborated closely with the NASA Ames Research Center Intelligent Robotics Group as a research intern. He received his M.S. in Mechanical and Robotics Engineering from GIST and his B.S. in Electronics and Information Engineering from Kwangwoon University.

News

Jun 1, 2026 Our paper, “What Breaks Monocular SLAM in Microgravity? An Initial Benchmark on Rotation-Dominant Astrobee ISS Sequences,” was presented at the ICRA 2026 Space Robotics Workshop
Oct 19, 2025 Our paper, “SPLiCE: Single-Point LiDAR and Camera Calibration & Estimation Leveraging Manhattan World,” was presented at IEEE/RSJ IROS 2025
Jul 29, 2025 Our paper, “Drift-Free Visual Compass Leveraging Digital Twins for Cluttered Environments,” was presented at the 2nd Space Robotics Workshop and published in the IEEE conference proceedings
Jan 2, 2025 Our paper, “San Francisco World: Leveraging Structural Regularities of Slope for 3-DoF Visual Compass,” has been accepted by IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), January 2025
Oct 1, 2024 I received GIST 2024 International Research Experience Fellowship

Publications

2026

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    What Breaks Monocular SLAM in Microgravity? An Initial Benchmark on Rotation-Dominant Astrobee ISS Sequences
    Jungil Ham, Brian Coltin, Ryan Soussan, and Pyojin Kim
    In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Space Robotics Workshop (SRW), 2026
    PDF Poster Video

2025

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    SPLiCE: Single-Point LiDAR and Camera Calibration & Estimation Leveraging Manhattan World
    Minji Kim, Jeahn Han, Jungil Ham, and Pyojin Kim
    In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2025
    PDF Code
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    Drift-Free Visual Compass Leveraging Digital Twins for Cluttered Environments
    Jungil Ham, Ryan Soussan, Brian Coltin, Hoyeong Chun, and Pyojin Kim
    2025
    PDF Code

2024

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    San Francisco World: Leveraging Structural Regularities of Slope for 3-DoF Visual Compass
    Jungil Ham, Minji Kim, Suyoung Kang, Kyungdon Joo, Haoang Li, and Pyojin Kim
    IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2024
    PDF Code

2023

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    Indoor Pedestrian-Following System by a Drone with Edge Computing and Neural Networks: Part 2-Development of Tracking System and Monocular Depth Estimation
    Jung-Il Ham, In-Chan Ryu, Jun-Oh Park, Jae-Woo Joeng, Sung-Chang Kim, and Hyo-Sung Ahn
    In 2023 23rd International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS), 2023
    PDF
  2. etri1.png
    Indoor Pedestrian-Following System by a Drone with Edge Computing and Neural Networks: Part 1-System Design
    In-Chan Ryu, Jung-Il Ham, Jun-Oh Park, Jae-Woo Joeng, Sung-Chang Kim, and Hyo-Sung Ahn
    In 2023 23rd International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS), 2023
    PDF
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