From the 1st-Fifth June, the robots descended on Vienna. The 2026 IEEE Worldwide Convention on Robotics & Automation (ICRA) introduced collectively the highest minds in robotics for one brief week to showcase the newest applied sciences, kind new collaborations, and trade concepts. Held on the Messe Wien, a stone’s throw from the financial institution of the Danube, ICRA proved to be equal elements technological marvel and thought-provoking dialogue.
The host venue for ICRA 2026: Messe Wien, also referred to as VIECON.
Workshop on robotic ethics
My week at ICRA started with the 2nd ICRA 2026 Workshop on Robotic Ethics: Moral, Authorized and Consumer Views in Robotics & Automation (WOROBET). WOROBET offered an area for researchers to share concepts, ideas, and issues on the way forward for robot-human interplay, and the way to create moral frameworks to navigate this quickly altering know-how.
Yasuhisa Hirata, Professor at Tohoku College, started by presenting his imaginative and prescient of a world with bodily assistive robots, resembling removable exoskeletons or biking wheelchairs. These instruments can have an effect on folks’s sense of self-efficacy and motivation, and there are a number of moral implications that include this – how do you assist folks simply sufficient to construct their confidence, with out slipping into deception?
We then heard from Prof. Minoru Asada from Osaka College, who mentioned his purpose to implement ache indicators into robots, to allow them to expertise the world as we do. This was a extremely attention-grabbing and area of interest proposition that introduced up extra moral questions than we have now solutions for in the meanwhile. Maybe most pertinent to a technical convention: is a way of embodied morality crucial for true intelligence?
Alan Winfield, Professor of Robotic Ethics at UWE Bristol, offered a imaginative and prescient of robotics that acted as a counterweight to Prof. Asada’s: robots as instruments, not potential beings. This additionally considerably displays differing attitudes in Jap vs Western cultures. Fascinated about the sensible points we’re more likely to face within the close to time period, he outlined a framework for social robotic accident investigation. In his view, robotic ethics is not only an engineering downside, however requires acceptable social and governance frameworks, simply as we do for aviation. His speak additionally emphasised the danger that programming ethics into robots runs the danger of eradicating ethical accountability from the roboticist, and may all the time give rise to unethical robots by way of malicious hacking. The theme that we should give attention to human morality, versus machine morality, was repeated all through the day.
After a morning of differing concepts and visions of what robot-human interplay may very well be, we have been invited to floor this into an actual robotic social care state of affairs by Praminda Caleb-Solly, Professor of Embodied Intelligence on the College of Nottingham. On this red-teaming train, we examined the security dangers and potential mitigations of an assistive robotic for a schoolteacher recovering from a stroke at house. Our group dialogue circled round human company: how moral is it to make design decisions for those who take away a few of their autonomy, within the identify of their finest pursuits? As robots in social care will turn into a extra pressing want within the years to return, these questions could turn into extra salient.
I left WOROBET with loads to consider, and a renewed sense of appreciation for the ethicists who’re already grappling with the issues which might be to return. I hope that progress in robotic ethics retains tempo with progress in robotics, in order that we’re properly ready as robots turn into extra of part of our every day lives.
Welcome to the jungle – the robotic exhibition ground
Each time you entered the exhibition corridor, you have been greeted by one of many child-sized Booster robots, both enjoying soccer, dancing, or demonstrating some kung fu. They have been all the time an endearing welcome to the ocean of robots.
The robots ranged from the endearing to the uncanny, however the frequent thread was their technical capabilities have been astounding. Veteran attendees constantly remarked on how a lot the robots had improved yr on yr.
The beneath clips present the robots that the majority caught my eye. After admiring a phosphorescent, Stranger Issues-esque robotic flower show, I used to be blown away by the D1-modular robotic from Direct Drive. In contrast to most robotic canine, it will possibly break up into two halves, with the power to leap, twist, and traverse tough terrain.
Sharpa’s North was all the time a pleasant face, waving and making love-hearts at guests to its sales space. Across the again of the sales space, you possibly can even problem it to a spherical at blackjack. We noticed humanoids zipping up rucksacks and attempting to fold laundry. Enchanted Instruments’ social care robotic, Mirokaï, was an uncommon sight among the many mass of black and metal, with a vibrant orange physique, feline ears and an orange, furry face. Tesollo’s humanoid spent a lot of its time at ICRA utilizing its lengthy, wavering arms to choose up fruit and drop it into baskets, with spectacular dexterity. Vietnamese firm Vinrobotics’ humanoid providing was paying homage to the Cybermen, with its gently wheezing joints, however the crew assured me it was a lot friendlier. The pint-sized Boosters have been nearly all the time enjoying soccer, not removed from their equally sized Agibot cousins.
Nonetheless, humanoids didn’t steal the present this yr, as they’ve executed beforehand. The large pattern this yr was robotic fingers, and the degrees of dexterity have been really spectacular. Closing the hole between human and robotic skills right here would unlock entire new swathes of duties to automate – and who wouldn’t need a robotic folding their laundry?
Industrial challenges: fixing dexterity
Tackling the dexterity problem actually outlined the economic talks for me this yr. A chat by ARIA’s program director, Prof. Jenny Learn, demonstrated how the UK authorities is already laying the groundwork right here.
They outlined their funding proposals as a part of their Smarter Robotic Our bodies program, which is break up into two branches: robotic locomotion and robotic dexterity. The robotic locomotion department goals to allow robots to traverse messy, unpredictable bodily environments, whereas the robotic dexterity department will attempt to break the bottleneck of adept bodily manipulation by robotic fingers. With the programme set to launch in early 2027, it’ll be thrilling to see what sort of improvements this attracts.
One standout innovation within the realm of dexterity was TARS, a record-setting newcomer within the Chinese language robotics market. Co-founded by Dr Ding Wenchao simply 18 months in the past, TARS has already raised essentially the most funding in angel and pre-seed rounds of any firm within the Chinese language embodied intelligence sector, and achieved a Guinness World Document for robotic versatile wiring-harness insertion accomplished in a single hour.
TARS’ DexHand. Picture credit: TARS.
DexHand is a 1:1 mannequin of the human hand, even replicating the 21 levels of freedom we have now within the wrist joint and hand. In line with TARS, “it will possibly interpret tactile knowledge to tell apart slipperiness, roughness, and hardness in actual time and carry out 26 English alphabet hand gestures with high-precision finger management.” I used to be given the prospect to regulate the hand utilizing my very own, and was impressed by how properly it emulated my very own actions. I used to be additionally impressed by their humanoid zipping up a backpack – regardless of the technical skills of all of the robots on the ground, few have been in a position to carry out duties which required such high-quality motor expertise.
TARS robotic zipping up a rucksack.
On Thursday, Dr Wenchao Ding delivered an {industry} keynote the place he offered TARS’ roadmap, charting the trail from academia to industrial deployment. With a powerful educational crew behind them, TARS could also be one to observe.
Plenary talks
Apart from the wealth of invention and innovation going down within the exhibition corridor, the breadth and depth of educational analysis at ICRA was incredible. The plenaries particularly gave an perception into the analysis developments which might be at present defining the sector.
Ken Goldberg delivered an electrifying plenary, titled “A Story of Two Cultures: Can Agentic Coding Shut the Hole?” On this speak, he referred to as for a step change to shut the information hole confronted by robotic manipulation. With the rise of diffusion fashions and LLMs, it’s clear that large knowledge has solved laptop imaginative and prescient and language. He challenged the viewers – when will the ChatGPT second for robotics come? With state areas bigger than 50 dimensions in robotics, there’s not sufficient coaching knowledge to shut this hole. At present, the information required to coach vision-language fashions is equal to 100,000 years of actual bodily expertise.
In line with Goldberg, the 2 dominant cultures in engineering – mannequin free “good quaint” engineering (GOFE), and, the at present extra standard mannequin primarily based engineering. GOFE encapsulates rigorous engineering strategies that pre-date AI, however could have been barely forgotten about within the AI wave of current years. He additionally highlighted how, in his profession, he has all the time been working to bridge the hole between two cultures: from science and artwork; to robotics and automation.
He outlined 4 potential options to the information hole:
- Simulations – these work extremely properly for locomotion and physique management, however much less so for manipulation as a result of variety of forces and instabilities concerned.
- World fashions – they don’t at present correctly seize the physics, and hallucinations might be problematic.
- Human teleoperation – that is at present large enterprise and a great way to acquire prime quality knowledge. Nonetheless, the biggest dataset is at present solely equal to a yr’s price of information.
- Actual knowledge from functioning robots – that is much less generally used, however might be highly effective.
Prof Goldberg described how he used the fourth strategy in his robotic supply packing firm, Ambi Robotics, for 22 years. Choosing up baggage is an instance of variational automation – one job is completed repeatedly, however with totally different preliminary situations every time. From this wealthy dataset, they created a generative mannequin to coach robots in one of the best ways to choose up baggage. Right here, they shut the hole between model-free and model-based strategies – Ambi exploits each to realize industry-leading outcomes. This plenary served as a name for different researchers to make use of their very own manufacturing knowledge to do the identical.
Throughout Thursday’s keynote on Robotic Studying, Planning & Basis Fashions, Stefanie Tellex from Brown College gave a compelling speak titled “In the direction of Advanced Language in Partially Noticed Environments”. Whereas present analysis is bounded in recognized, predictable eventualities, utilizing action-based language, this doesn’t replicate what the true world is like, nor how folks would naturally talk with robots. Prof. Tellex described her work creating robots that may perceive complicated, goal-based instructions in solely partially noticed, dynamic environments, and outlined the grounded Turing check – a reimagining of the Turing check for embodied AI.
An instance of a robotic performing a goal-based job in a dynamic surroundings. Credit: Tellex et al, 2026.
Each plenaries spoke to present pinch factors in robotics: knowledge, reasoning, and working in complicated real-world environments. It’ll be attention-grabbing to see what options are developed within the coming years.
Science communications crash course
Considered one of my favorite elements of ICRA was delivering the Science Communications Crash Course. Together with Robohub Govt Trustee Sabine Hauert, IEEE Spectrum Senior Editor Evan Ackerman, and IEEE Spectrum Neighborhood Supervisor Kohava Mendelsohn, we gave our steerage on efficient science communication to an viewers of 100 lecturers. It was encouraging to see so many individuals considering speaking their analysis successfully – it’s a essential talent, particularly within the period of AI and robotics when mainstream narratives might be hijacked by doom-mongering, hype, and company pursuits. Extra lecturers speaking their work clearly and neutrally will go an extended technique to grounding our societal dialogue in technical actuality, not sci-fi futures.
Sabine kicking off the science communications crash course. Picture credit: Taraja Arnold
Delivering my a part of the course. Picture credit: Taraja Arnold
Artwork and robotics
The humanities and robotics part was wealthy and attention-grabbing. There was rather a lot to visually absorb, with fixed background music from a robotic saxophone.
Masatoshi Hamanaka’s robotic saxophone. Picture credit: ©Denes Erdos – Your Occasion Photographer
PET – marked by a big “PET ME” signal – was a white and orange mass of connecting, rotating pyramids, that lightly pulsed and hummed in response to the touch, responding by curling in direction of or away from you relying on the way you touched it, The impact was unusually lifelike.
Rhombus Analysis offered “Reptile: A Bio-Mimetic Choreography Engine for V2X and A2X Swarms”. This creative simulation visualises the contracts negotiated inside autonomous car and swarm fleets in dreamy blue, browser-based visualisation. Efficiency artist and former Cirque de Soleil acrobat Silke Grabinger explored human-robot interplay by way of her piece, AREYOUARE.
Silke Grabinger performing AREYOUARE. Picture credit: ©Denes Erdos – Your Occasion Photographer
I’d additionally wish to acknowledge among the video creators I met there. YouTubers Again to Engineering and the. Superb, PhD are making some incredible movies about bodily AI.
Nothing lasts perpetually – ending with the robotic parade
ICRA 2026 ended with the robotic parade, which attracted fairly a crowd. See in the event you can spot the panda, dragon, and headless humanoid!
Seeing all of the robots gathered collectively was an actual spectacle. The know-how on show was state-of-the-art, and it solely improves yr on yr. What struck me most was the sense that robotics is transferring from proving what is feasible to tackling the remaining obstacles to real-world deployment. Throughout the exhibition ground, {industry} keynotes, and plenary talks, the main focus was usually on the identical challenges: dexterity, knowledge, and working reliably in complicated environments. Fixing these bottlenecks will open up new avenues to real-world purposes of robots.
Whereas workshops resembling WOROBET highlighted essential questions round ethics, company, and governance, the overwhelming emphasis at ICRA 2026 was on functionality. Researchers and corporations alike are working to shut the hole between what robots can do in fastidiously managed demonstrations and what they will do within the messy actuality of the world exterior the lab. Judging by the tempo of progress on show in Vienna, that hole could also be narrowing quicker than many people anticipated. I hope that the sorts of conversations round human-robot interplay and ethics that have been commonplace at WOROBET and within the Arts exhibition area will turn into extra mainstream – we could have to face the questions that they increase earlier than we predict.
Word: The place picture and video credit should not acknowledged, they belong to Ella Scallan.
Ella Scallan
is Assistant Editor for AIhub