KAIST

- Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu of Civil and Environmental Engineering receives the Best Paper Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Robotics Journal, officially presented at ICRA, a world-renowned robotics conference.

- This is the highest level of international recognition, awarded to only the top 5 papers out of approximately 1,500 published in 2024.

- Securing a new working channel technology for soft growing robots expands the practicality and application possibilities in the field of soft robotics.

< Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu (left), Nam Gyun Kim, Ph.D. Candidate (right) from the KAIST Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and KAIST Robotics Program >

KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) announced on the 6th that Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering received the 2024 Best Paper Award from the Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), a premier journal under the IEEE, at the '2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)' held in Atlanta, USA, on May 22nd.

This Best Paper Award is a prestigious honor presented to only the top 5 papers out of approximately 1,500 published in 2024, boasting high international competition and authority.

The award-winning paper by Professor Ryu proposes a novel working channel securing mechanism that significantly expands the practicality and application possibilities of 'Soft Growing Robots,' which are based on soft materials that move or perform tasks through a growing motion similar to plant roots.

< IEEE Robotics Journal Award Ceremony >

Existing soft growing robots move by inflating or contracting their bodies through increasing or decreasing internal pressure, which can lead to blockages in their internal passages. In contrast, the newly developed soft growing robot achieves a growing function while maintaining the internal passage pressure equal to the external atmospheric pressure, thereby successfully securing an internal passage while retaining the robot's flexible and soft characteristics.

This structure allows various materials or tools to be freely delivered through the internal passage (working channel) within the robot and offers the advantage of performing multi-purpose tasks by flexibly replacing equipment according to the working environment.

The research team fabricated a prototype to prove the effectiveness of this technology and verified its performance through various experiments. Specifically, in the slide plate experiment, they confirmed whether materials or equipment could pass through the robot's internal channel without obstruction, and in the pipe pulling experiment, they verified if a long pipe-shaped tool could be pulled through the internal channel.

< Figure 1. Overall hardware structure of the proposed soft growing robot (left) and a cross-sectional view composing the inflatable structure (right) >

Experimental results demonstrated that the internal channel remained stable even while the robot was growing, serving as a key basis for supporting the technology's practicality and scalability.

Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu stated, "This award is very meaningful as it signifies the global recognition of Korea's robotics technology and academic achievements. Especially, it holds great significance in achieving technical progress that can greatly expand the practicality and application fields of soft growing robots. This achievement was possible thanks to the dedication and collaboration of the research team, and I will continue to contribute to the development of robotics technology through innovative research."

< Figure 2. Material supplying mechanism of the Soft Growing Robot >

This research was co-authored by Dongoh Seo, Ph.D. Candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Nam Gyun Kim, Ph.D. Candidate in Robotics. It was published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters on September 1, 2024.

(Paper Title: Inflatable-Structure-Based Working-Channel Securing Mechanism for Soft Growing Robots, DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2024.3426322)

This project was supported simultaneously by the National Research Foundation of Korea's Future Promising Convergence Technology Pioneer Research Project and Mid-career Researcher Project.