KAIST

< Dr. Namgyun Kim (left) and Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu (right) of KAIST >

A research team led by Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at KAIST has received the Best Paper Award from IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), one of the world's most prestigious journals in robotics, for the second consecutive year.

KAIST(President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced on June 22 that Professor Ryu's team received the award during ICRA 2026, held in Vienna, Austria, with the award ceremony taking place on June 4. Following its recognition in 2025, the team has now achieved the rare distinction of winning the RA-L Best Paper Award in two consecutive years, underscoring the global competitiveness and sustained impact of KAIST's soft robotics research.

The RA-L Best Paper Award is presented annually to a select group of papers demonstrating outstanding scientific contribution, technical originality, experimental rigor, and future impact. This year, only five papers were selected from more than 1,700 papers published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters during 2025.

The award-winning paper, titled “Self-Wearing Adaptive Garments via Soft Robotic Unfurling,” presents a novel assistive dressing technology in which garments autonomously unfold and move along the user's body using soft robotic principles. The research was led by Dr. Namgyun Kim of KAIST in collaboration with the research group of Professor Allison M. Okamura at Stanford University.

Conventional dressing-assistance systems often rely on external robotic devices and complex control systems, which can restrict user movement and comfort. In contrast, the KAIST team incorporated the core principles of soft growing robots into garment structures, enabling the clothing itself to gently unfold and assist the wearer without requiring a separate external robotic manipulator.

< Types of robot-assisted dressing systems. (a) An external robot manipulates conventional garments to assist the user. (b) Specialized wearable assistive/rehabilitative devices are capable of autonomous donning and doffing. (c) Proposed approach: A self-wearing system that augments existing garments with integrated soft robotic mechanisms for autonomous dressing. >

The researchers integrated a pneumatic eversion mechanism into lightweight and flexible garments. When pressurized, the structure gradually unfolds along the user's body, providing reliable dressing assistance while maintaining safety and compliance. The soft robotic architecture is particularly advantageous for applications involving direct human contact, as it minimizes physical burden and reduces the need for sophisticated control systems.

The team developed and evaluated multiple garment prototypes, including sleeves, jackets, and pants. Experimental results demonstrated that the garments could reliably unfold along the user's body, reducing physical effort during dressing while maintaining safe interaction forces.

< Self-wearing demonstration using the SWAG system. (a) Basic donning operation using a sleeve-type prototype actuated by an automated base station. (b) Jacket donning demonstration with the SWAG integrated as an active component of the garment. (c) Pants donning demonstration with the SWAG integrated as an active component of the garment (see the Video Demonstration link) >

This work highlights how soft growing robotics can expand beyond traditional applications such as locomotion, exploration, and manipulation to directly support activities of daily living. The technology has strong potential for assistive applications for older adults, people with disabilities, and rehabilitation patients, while also opening new directions for wearable robotics, rehabilitation engineering, and human-robot interaction.

“This second consecutive award demonstrates the sustained global competitiveness of KAIST robotics research,” said Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu. “Our work extends the core principles of soft growing robots into assistive dressing technologies that can directly improve daily life. We will continue developing safe, flexible, and human-centered robotic technologies.”

The paper was published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters on November 19, 2025.
Paper Title: Self-Wearing Adaptive Garments via Soft Robotic Unfurling DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2025.3634909