Jee Hwan Ryu - "Soft Growing Robots: From Disaster Response to Colonoscopy"

Описание: Speaker Biography
2019 ~ Present: Professor, Dept. of CEE, KAIST
2025 ~ Present: IEEE Fellow
2025 ~ Present: IEEE RAS AdCom
2016 ~ 2017: Visiting Professor, Stanford, AI Lab
2005 ~ 2019: Assistant/Associate/Full Professor, KOREATECH
2003 ~ 2005: Research Professor, KAIST
2002 ~ 2003: Visiting Professor, German Aerospace Center
2002 ~ 2003: Post-Doc, University of Washington

Abstract
Soft growing robots, often referred to as vine robots, represent a new class of continuum robots that achieve locomotion by extending their body through tip eversion, much like the growth of a plant vine. This simple yet powerful principle enables robots to navigate confined and cluttered environments without causing significant disturbance to their surroundings. Despite their promise, early implementations have faced key challenges that limit their deployment in real-world scenarios, including restricted steering, difficulty in mounting sensors and tools at the tip, challenges in controlled retraction, and robustness under diverse operating conditions. In this keynote, I will introduce the fundamental working principle of vine robots and present recent advances in mechanisms that overcome these limitations, enabling practical deployment. I will describe new approaches for high-curvature steering, modular tip-mounting of sensors and end-effectors, and efficient retraction strategies, each designed to expand the capabilities of soft growing robots. These innovations open the door to a wide range of impactful applications, from disaster response and search-and-rescue operations in collapsed structures, to directional drilling and underwater exploration, to minimally invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopy. By bridging fundamental mechanisms with practical implementation, this talk highlights how soft growing robots are transforming from laboratory prototypes into versatile tools for some of society’s most urgent and delicate challenges.