Young Min Han

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Inha University

Papers

Total Citations

234

H-Index

About

Young Min Han is a pioneering roboticist whose work bridges the uncanny valley between machines and human expression. His most celebrated contribution is the design of **Albert HUBO** (2006), the world’s first bipedal walking humanoid with an expressive human face. Developed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s special relativity theory, this android integrated a highly articulated robotic body with a lifelike, animatronic face capable of conveying emotions—a landmark achievement in human-robot interaction that has garnered **231 citations**. Han’s research spans **humanoid robotics, haptic feedback systems, and medical robotics**. In a notable application-oriented project, he proposed a **magnetorheological (MR) tactile device** for robotic minimally invasive surgery (RMIS), designed to restore the surgeon’s sense of tissue viscosity and stiffness during teleoperation—a critical step toward safer, more intuitive surgical robots. While this specific work has **3 citations**, it underscores his commitment to solving real-world clinical challenges. Through his fusion of expressive anthropomorphism and practical haptic engineering, Young Min Han has helped shape the trajectory of socially interactive and medically assistive robots.