Joel Hwee

University of Washington, Palo Alto Research Center

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Joel Hwee is a leading researcher in soft robotics and emergency medical device design, with a focus on everting tube technologies—a class of robots that deploy by turning inside out, much like a vine growing. His most impactful contribution is the development of an **everting emergency airway device**, which autonomously deploys a dual-balloon tube into a patient’s airway for rapid, bystander-accessible management. This work, published in 2021 (14 citations), addresses the critical challenge of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, where over 90% of 150,000 annual U.S. cases prove fatal. Hwee’s subsequent 2023 paper on kinematic modeling (7 citations) validates that everting tubes can be accurately described using inflated beam theory, enabling precise control in cluttered environments. He has also pioneered the use of acoustic signals to infer environmental interactions of these robots, distinguishing tunnel sizes from pressure and audio data (0–10 kHz). With a total of 25 citations across his key works, Hwee’s research bridges soft robotics and life-saving medical devices, offering compact, reliable solutions for trauma care and autonomous navigation.