Figure 1 Cecilia Laschi(Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies), Bradley J. Nelson(ETH Zurich), PhD student Beomjune Shin, Guang-Zhong Yang(Imperial College London), Paolo Dario(Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies), Benny Lo(Imperial College London)


Figure 2 Figure 2 Prof. Ho-Young Kim, PhD student Beonjune Shin, master student Moonkyeong Choi of Seoul National University

Seoul National University College of Engineering (Dean: Kookheon Char) announced that Professor Ho-Young Kim of Dept. of Mechanical Engineering and his team received Best Poster Award at the Gordon Research Conference Robotics 2020. The event was held in Ventura, California, USA from January 12 to 17.

Founded in 1931, Gordon Research Conference is an international academic conference where leading research in over 200 fields is presented. As soft robots have been increasingly gaining attention, this was the first time that the conference was held for Robotics. A variety of researchers and professionals from mechanics, electronics, chemistry, materials technology, and physics attended the event. Among the panel of judges for the Poster Award were Guang-Zhong Yang (Professor at Imperial College London and editor-in-chief of Science Robotics), Bradley J. Nelson (ETH Zürich, Switzerland) and Paolo Dario (Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy), all of whom are renowned academics in the field of robotics.

Prof. Ho-Young Kim’s team presented their research titled “Self-locomotive soft actuation systems powered by environmental humidity,” with PhD student Beomjune Shin as the lead author. The team developed an actuator powered by humidity, inspired by plant movements, and created various soft mechanical systems using the actuator. They also suggested an optimized design based on theoretical analysis.

The research was conducted as a part of ‘Metamorphing Mechanical Systems Research’ funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea.