Prof. Jee-Hwan Ryu Delivers Keynote Talk at IROS 2025 on Soft Growing Robots

We are proud to announce that Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu was invited as a keynote speaker at the 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2025), held in Hangzhou, China.

In his keynote session, titled “Soft Growing Robots: From Disaster Response to Colonoscopy,” Professor Ryu presented the latest research breakthroughs in “vine robots”—a unique class of soft robots that navigate environments through growth (tip eversion).

The talk highlighted critical mechanical advances developed by our lab to overcome existing limitations of soft growing robots, including:

• Innovative Steering Mechanisms: New approaches for both whole-body and tip steering to enable precise navigation in cluttered spaces.
• Modular Tip-Mounting: An origami-based folding method that allows sensors and tools to stay at the tip while maintaining the robot’s soft, morphing nature.
• Stable Retraction Strategies: A self-retracting mechanism that utilizes internal pressure channels, eliminating the need for external pulling forces.

Professor Ryu demonstrated how these technologies are being translated into real-world solutions, from portable disaster response prototypes capable of searching collapsed buildings to advanced colonoscopy tools tested in animal studies for safer medical diagnostics. He also showcased a unique “self-wearing” garment application (SWAG) for physical assistance.

The full recording of the keynote talk is now available on the official IEEE RAS YouTube channel. We invite researchers and practitioners interested in the future of soft robotics to watch the presentation through the video below.

Euibin Shin