Navigating rough terrain and even autonomous cooperation... Kwangwoon University’s 'RO:BIT' wins the National Defense Robot Competition for the second consecutive year with the highest score in history

[Financial News] Kwangwoon University's robot gaming team 'RO:BIT' has claimed the top spot for two consecutive years at a nationwide defense robot competition, breaking the all-time highest score record.
According to Kwangwoon University on the 10th, the RO:BIT team won first place in the finals of the '2026 Army Chief of Staff Cup National Defense Robot Competition,' held at the Pohang Sports Complex in North Gyeongsang Province from the 4th to the 6th, and received the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Award.
This competition focused on verifying the practical capabilities of robots in harsh real-world environments. It evaluated how well robots navigated obstacles and completed assigned missions on a challenging course that accurately replicated the mountainous terrain of the Korean Peninsula throughout the four seasons. In particular, robot collaboration technology was presented as a key challenge, as it included joint operation missions where robots moved and coordinated with quadruped robots.
With six elite teams selected from across the country through document screening competing against each other, RO:BIT's self-developed disaster relief robot, 'Eclipse,' completed the entire course flawlessly. It achieved a perfect score in both the 'remote control' category, where a person operates the robot wirelessly from the outside, and the 'autonomous driving' category, where the robot finds its own path and moves, earning the highest score in the history of the competition.
Choi Beom-su, the team leader of the Intelligent Robot Team, stated, "We were able to perfectly pass through the entire course by improving upon the issues that arose last year," adding, "It was meaningful to be able to directly demonstrate the skills we had honed only in the lab in a real-world environment."
A team of six students from the Department of Robotics—led by Team Leader Choi Beom-su and including Kim Min-jo, Park Ki-hong, Song Su-min, Woo Jeong-yun, and Ha Jae-min—participated in the competition under the guidance of Professor Park Su-han. Founded in 2006 as Korea's first university robot gaming team, Kwangwoon University's RO:BIT has established itself as a breeding ground for the next generation of robot talent, having successively won awards such as the Presidential Award and the Prime Minister's Award.

[email protected] Kim Man-gi Reporter