It can be viewed on YouTube(Japanese).
https://youtube.com/live/ioSLYqZ5Wms?feature=share

The 19th Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony

On Tuesday the 9th January 2024, International Rescue System Institute held the 15th Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony in Chuo-ku Kobe, an area damaged by the great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake 29 years before.

This year, the Kisoi Motohiro Award for Academic Achievement was awarded to Associate Professor Yuichi Ambe of the University of Osaka Graduate School. The Kisoi Motohiro Award for Technical Achievement was awarded to Assistant Professor Shotaro Kojima of Tohoku University.

These awards recognise the outstanding achievements of Associate Professor Ambe’s “Study on Control of Multilegged and Rigid Rescue Robots Using Elastic Characteristics”, and Associate Professor Kojima’s “Development of Onix crawler robot with work arm and its application to plant inspection and maintenance”.

(Left: Assos. Prof. Ambe, Assos. Prof. Kojima)

(From left: IRS Director Prof. Takamori, IRS President Prof. Tadokoro, Academic Achievement Winner Assos. Prof. Ambe, Technical Achievement Winner Assos. Prof. Kojima, IRS Vice President Prof. Matsuno)

The recipients of the Kisoi Motohiro Awards for Academic Achievement and Technical Achievement each receive 100,000 yen prize money, a certificate and a commemorative trophy, and presented by the selection committee members.

The recipients of the awards for encouragement, which focus on the younger generation, are as follows. “Hong Kong Line Team” Tsang Ho Wan、Lee Ho Ming、Keong Ka Ching、Hung Sin Hei received the Robocup Junior IRS award, Shibaura Institute of Technology Micro Robotics Laboratory team “QoQ”‘s Kenjiro Sugimoto, Yuma Nitta, Yuhi Yamamoto, Hiroshi Seki, Ryota Hiratsuka, Fumiya Yamamoto, and Reo Kimura received the Rescue Robot Contest Award, and Ryotaro Kayawake of Tohoku University received the Award for the Study of Robotics. After the award ceremony, the winners of Rescue Robot Contest and The Study of Robotics each gave a presentation about their research. There was a video introduction featuring comments from the absent Robocup Junior IRS award-winning team.

IEEE IROS 2023 Best Paper Award on Safety Security and Rescue Robotics in memory of Motohiro Kisoi, Heiko Kabutz, Alexander Hedrick、
William Parker McDonnell, Kaushik Jayaram (University of Colorado Bouler). They received their award in October 2023 in Detorit and so did not attend this ceremony in Japan.

Finally, the recipient of the Award for Academic Achievement Assos. Prof. Ambe, the recipient of the Award for Technical Achievement Assos. Prof. Kojima, gave talks on their fields of research.

(Left: Mr Kayawake ’s presentation Right: Vice President Matsuno’s closing speech)

The ceremony closed with a warm applause for the highly acclaimed achievements in their respective fields.

（Left: IRS Vice President Prof. Matsuno, IRS Director Prof. Takamori, Rescue Robot Contest Award Mr. Sugimoto, The Study of Rescue Robotics Award Mr. Kayawake, Achievement Winner Assos. Prof. Ambe, Technical Achievement Winner Assos. Prof. Kojima, Prof. Niimi, IRS President Prof. Tadokoro）