KISOI MOTOHIRO AWARD

The Kisoi Motohiro Award is named in honor of Motohiro Kisoi, a first-year master's course student at Kobe University Graduate School who died at the young age of 23 while trapped under the debris of a wooden apartment building during the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on January 17th, 1995. Kisoi was researching intelligent manipulation using robots that combine vision and mechanics. Kisoi dreamt of becoming a researcher or engineer, and developing robots that would save people in the future.

In honor of Kisoi`s dream, this award project was launched by IRS on the 10th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (January 17th, 2005). The award aims to recognize young researchers and engineers and their efforts in the study and development of rescue systems. The award is generally granted to young researchers or engineers under the age of 40 who have exemplified outstanding achievements in the field of search and rescue.

Since 2009, we have added new award categories, including the "Award for Encouragement", an award aimed to motivate young students who major in or study rescue robotics. As of the 2014 fiscal year, we have also created the "Medical Achievement" and " Psychology Achievement" awards, which will be granted once every five years.

We accept candidates annually from the general public. Candidate applications are examined and judged by a committee consisting of members selected from various fileds relating to rescue systems. A ceremony is held every year around the anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, where winners are presented with the Kisoi Motohiro Award.

The "Kisoi Motohiro Award" (Pamphlet) (PDF)

The Kisoi Motohiro Award is Open for Applications

The International Rescue System Institute (IRS) is now calling for applicants for the “Kisoi Motohiro Award 2024”. Please review the information below for further details.

We are looking forward to your applications.

Applicant guidelines [PDF]
Application Form for Academic Achievement [WORD]
Application Form for Technical Achievement [WORD]
“Kisoi Motohiro Award” Regulations (Japanese only)

Past Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony Reports

To see past reports on the Kisoi Motohiro Ceremony, please click below

View Past Reports

Kisoi Motohiro Award is supported by public subscription. We would be grateful for your support.

We would also like to show our sincerest appreciation to all the donators.
The list of Donators (Japanese Only)

The Past Winners of the Kisoi Motohiro Award

Winners of the 19th Kisoi Motohiro Award 2023: 【Academic Achievement】 Yuichi Ambe, University of Osaka Graduate School
【Technical Achievement】 Shotaro Kojima, Tohoku University
【RoboCup Jr. IRS Award】 “Hong Kong Line Team” (Tsang Ho Wan, Lee Ho Ming, Keong Ka Ching, Hung Sin Hei)
【Rescue Robot Contest】 “QoQ” Shibaura Institute of Technology Micro Robotics Laboratory (Kenjiro Sugimoto, Yuma Nitta, Yuhi Yamamoto, Hiroshi Seki, Ryota Hiratsuka, Fumiya Yamamoto, Reo Kimura)
【The Study of Rescue Robotics】Ryotaro Kayawake, Tohoku University

Winners of the 18th Kisoi Motohiro Award 2022: 【Academic Achievement】 Gen Endo, Tokyo Institute of Technology
【Technical Achievement】 Masahiro Watanabe, Tohoku University
【Medical Achievement】 Kouki Akahoshi, Japan Disaster Medical Assistance Team
【Psychological Achievement】 Reika Nomura, Kyushu University
【RoboCup Jr. IRS Award】 “DMS-Hokori” (Kakeru Takano, Ryouta Furuno, Shoutaro Morishita)
【Rescue Robot Contest】 “TASUKE-tai” College of Industrial Technology Robot Project (Nanoka Yamamoto, Miyu Nakamura, Rikuto Tabata, Hiroto Tamakoshi, Naoto Fujihara, Takuto Uemura)
【The Study of Rescue Robotics】Takashi Tomiyama, Kyoto University

Winners of the 17th Kisoi Motohiro Award 2021: 【Academic Achievement】 Kei Hiroi, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University
【Technical Achievement】 Toshinori Kagawa, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry
【RoboCup Jr. IRS Award】 “Littlegigant”, Wakayama Koyo High School
【Rescue Robot Contest】 “Tokufai!”, Tokushima University
【The Study of Rescue Robotics】 Tanakashi Takuro, from The University of Electro-Communications

Winners of the 16th Kisoi Motohiro Award 2020: 【Academic Achievement】Yoshiaki Bando (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence Research Centre)
【Technical Achievement】Kotaro Hishiba (Kanagawa University, Department of Electrical, Electronics and Information Engineering）
【Rescue Robot Contest Award for Encouragement of Ideas】『Daikodai Enjunior』Osaka Institute Of Technology, Mono Lab Project
【Rescue Robot Contest Award for Encouragement of the Spirit】『MCT』Matsue College, Department of Mechanical Engineering
【The Study of Rescue Robotics】Ryota Watanabe (University of Electro-Communications)

The Internationalisation of the Kisoi Motohiro Award

As announced at the world-renowned IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.)’s IROS (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), the IEEE IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics in memory of Motohiro Kisoi has been established as of 2016.

IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Best Paper Award on Safety,
Security, and Rescue Robotics in memory of Motohiro Kisoi

Past Winners of the IEEE IROS Best Paper Award
on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, in memory of Motohiro Kisoi

*In brackets is the affiliation at the time of recieving the award

Winners of the Best Paper Award 2023: 【Winners】Heiko Kabutz, Alexander Hedrick、William P. McDonnell, Kaushik Jayaram (University of Colorado Bouler)
【Winning Paper】mCLARI: a shape-morphing insect-scale robot capable of omnidirectional terrain-adaptive locomotion in laterally confined spaces
【Selection Committee Chairperson】 Fumitoshi Matsuno (Kyoto University)
【Selection Committee】Andreas Birk, Howie Choset, Tetsuya Kimura, Giuseppe Loianno, Robin Murphy, Hideyuki Tsukagoshi

Winners of the Best Paper Award 2022: 【Winners】Eugenio Cuniato, Nicholas Lawrance, Marco Tognon, Roland Siegwart (ETHZ)
【Winning Paper】Power based Safety Layer for Aerial Vehicles in Physical Interaction using Lyapunov Exponents
【Selection Committee Chairperson】 Fumitoshi Matsuno (Kyoto University)
【Selection Committee】Howie Choset, Jorge Dias, Paolo Fiorini, Tetsuya Kimura, Giuseppe Loianno, Robin Murphy, Andreas Nuechte, Satoshi Tadokoro, Hideyuki Tsukagoshi

Winners of the Best Paper Award 2020: 【Winners】Amanda Bouman, Muhammad Fadhil Ginting, Nikhilesh Alatur, Matteo Palieri, David D Fan, Kim Sung-Kyun, Thomas Touma, Torkom Pailevanian, Kyohei Otsu, Joel Burdick, Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi (USA)
【Winning Paper】Autonomous Spot: Long-Range Autonomous Exploration of Extreme Environments with Legged Locomotion
【Selection Committee Chairperson】 Fumitoshi Matsuno (Kyoto University)
【Selection Committee】Prof. Paolo Fiorini (University of Verona), Prof. Giuseppe Loianno (New York University), Prof. Jorge Manuel Miranda Dias (Khalifa University), Robin Murphy (Texas A&M University) Eduardo Silva (Porto Polytechnic)