2024.10.18
News
Professor Kunii recieves the Commendation by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology at the 11th Robot Award
The winner of the 11th Robot Award was announced on September 11th, 2024. This award is co-organized by a) the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, b) the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and c) the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, etc. Professor Yasuharu KUNII of the Faculty of Science and Engineering and others were awarded the Commendation by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for successfully developing “a micro lunar rover LEV-1 & LEV-2 (picture 1)” in cooperation with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and others.
The Robot Award praises a) a robot that is highly expected to contribute to creating new markets, b) a robotic business, c) implementation of robots into society, and d) research & development of robots. Through its effort, it is expected to facilitate the development and commercialization of robotic technology and increase recognition of a robot that accelerates technology innovation and expanded application as well as bringing benefit to society, and then causing an increase in robotics demands. In addition, the award aims to grasp the trend in Japan’s domestic robotics technology by gathering participants from all over the country.
The points highly evaluated are as follows;
| Humans are trying to expand their activity territory so the demand for Lunar and Planetary Exploration is increasing. Amid such current situations, the missions for lunar exploration which were the autonomous deformation and hopping, autonomous shooting of LEV-1, etc., and the transmission of images to Earth had been achieved. In addition, both the downsizing of lunar exploration equipment and cost-cutting were realized which can contribute to the "space development" and “lunar and planetary exploration" led by private companies in the future. These outstanding achievements are linked to the coming success of lunar exploration and space development and also have significant impacts on the further development of science and technology. |
On September 18th, 2024, the awarding ceremony was held during “Japan Robot Week 2024” which took place at Tokyo Big Site. Professor Kunii attended the ceremony and Associate Professor of JAXA, Masatsugu Otsuki and others received a trophy and a certificate as a representative.
Acceptance Speech from Professor Yasuharu Kunii
LEV-1 and LEV-2 rovers have worked together on the moon surface and succeeded in direct data transmission to the ground station that was collected through autonomous exploration. Some may have seen on the news one of the image data of SLIM landing on the moon surface upside down. Furthermore, LEV-1 has succeeded in demonstrating hopping as a transferring movement on the moon surface.
It has been more than 20 years since we first designed the idea of a small robot now called LEV-1. We are grateful to succeed in the Japan-first moon exploration and we appreciate from the bottom of our heart for all the support of my buddy researchers and those who helped us in many ways.
We have now moved on to the next phase of the lunar exploitation robot's research that takes over the accomplishment of LEV-1. Under the Moonshot Research & Development Program, we want to enable a swarm of robots to move and explore the moon surface autonomously. We are setting out to realize the next new stage, and such accomplishment will contribute to the exploration of far planets. We appreciate your continuous support.
Holding a swarm robot ”RED” which is under development. From left: Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Akiko Honda; Professor Yasuharu Kunii; Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Associate Professor Takao Maeda; Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Shoji Nishida
A certificate of commendation
