Kisoi Motohiro Award

This award is named in honor of Motohiro Kisoi who was trapped under the debris of a wooden apartment building and died at the age of 23 in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on 17 Jan. 1995. He was studying intelligent manipulation of robots at Kobe University and dreaming of pursuing his career as a researcher or engineer engaging in robotics that could support people in the future.

To take over his dream, this award would be given young researchers or engineers, generally under 40 years old, marking outstanding achievement in the study and development of the rescue system. IRS launched this awarding project on 17th January 2005, the 10th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake.

We accept candidates annually from the general public. They are examined and judged by a review board of varied specialism. The winners are given the Kisoi Motohiro Award in an award ceremony every year around 17 Jan.

Furthermore, from 2009, we have created a new category for students "the Award for Encouragement" to motivate students who major in or study the rescue robotics.

As of the 2014 fiscal year, we have decided to award the "Medical Achievement" and " Psychology Achievement" award, once every five years.

Call for Application for 2017 Kisoi Motohiro Award

International Rescue System Institute (IRS) is now calling for applicants for the “Kisoi Motohiro Award 2018”. Please see below for details.
We are looking forward to a lot of applicants.

The Guidlines for Applicants of “Kisoi Motohiro Award”(J)
Application Form for Academic Achievement (J) [WORD]
Application Form for Technical Achievement (J) [WORD]
“Kisoi Motohiro Award” Regulations (J)(PDF)

The Report on the Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony

The report on the Kisoi Motohiro Ceremony

View History 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 (J)

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)