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

The 19th Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony

On Tuesday, January 9th 2024, the International Rescue System Institute held its 15th Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony in Chuo-ku, Kobe. The ceremony was held in commemoration of the loss suffered during the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake that took place 29 years ago, which destroyed most of the Chuo-ku area.

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, presented by the committee members, each received 100,000 yen prize money, a certificate, and a commemorative trophy.

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. A video introducing featured comments from the absent Robocup Junior IRS award-winning team was displayed during ceremony.

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

Finally, the recipient of the Award for Academic Achievement Assos. Prof. Ambe, and the recipient of the Award for Technical Achievement Assos. Prof. Kojima, each 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 of the awardees 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）