Workshop abstract
In recent years, robotics have experienced remarkable progress in terms of hardware for real-world manipulation. While new architectures—such as supernumerary robots, multi-arm aerial and loco-manipulation, and humanoids—are emerging and becoming more prevalent, their real-world effectiveness remains limited. Humanoids, for example, can perform impressive free-motion tasks like backflips and frontflips, yet they still rely heavily on pre-scripted motions or teleoperation, especially for tasks requiring coordinated multi-arm manipulation. This dependence makes them inflexible in dynamic, unstructured environments.
This workshop aims to push these boundaries by discussing and addressing a key question:
What are the main challenges and potential solutions in leveraging both state-of-the-art model-based and model-free methods (successful for single-arms) to enhance the capabilities of these new multi-arm designs?
Discussions will focus on a comprehensive set of challenges and solutions, with expert-led insights into:
- Multi-arm tasks in the real-world: A taxonomy of tasks are there for the robots;
- Multi-arm and whole-body coordination: Ensuring certified and adaptive behavior;
- Impact-aware manipulation: Enabling realistic real-time interactions;
- Learning and demonstration: Teaching new multi-arm tasks efficiently;
- Human-robot collaboration: A supernumerary perspective on multi-arm teamwork.
A prominent theme throughout the workshop is interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together the expertise of engineers, academics, industry partners, alongside early-career researchers. It will serve as a platform for sharing knowledge, defining benchmarks, and shaping the future of dynamic, intelligent, and real-world-ready multi-limb robotic systems. By integrating these perspectives into an interdisciplinary approach, this workshop seeks to drive tangible progress in multi-arm manipulation research and real-world deployment.
Topics of interest
- Whole-body Motion Coordination
- Dynamic Object Transfer & Regrasping
- Adaptive & Decentralized Cooperative Control
- Multi-Agent Learning & Cross-Limb Knowledge Transfer
- Whole-Body Agile Manipulation
- Dynamic Task Allocation in Multi-arm Systems
- Human-Robot Collaborative Manipulation
- Dynamic Manipulation of Moving Objects
- Robust Control in Uncertain Environments
- Benchmarking Agile Multi-Limb Systems
- Deformable Object Manipulation
- Cross-Platform Dynamic Manipulation
- Bio-Inspired Coordination & Learned Synergies
- Real-Time Motion & Grasp Synthesis
- Safety-Critical Agile Manipulation
Program
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| 08.45 – 09.00 | Welcome and Introduction by the organizers |
| 09.00 – 09.25 | Talk 1: Dual-arm human-robot collaborative imitation learning by Yanlong Huang |
| 09.25 – 09.50 | Talk 2: Representing Constraints in Human Bimanual Manipulation for Transfer to Humanoid Robots by Franziska Krebs |
| 09.50 – 10.15 | Talk 3: Impact aware bimanual manipulation by Alessandro Saccon |
| 10.15 – 10.45 | Coffee break & poster session |
| 10.45 – 11.10 | Talk 4: Enabling Versatility and Dexterity of the Dual-Arm Manipulators by Yi Ren |
| 11.10 – 11.35 | Talk 5: TBD by Aude Billard |
| 11:35 – 12.00 | Talk 6: TBD by Nadia Figueroa |
| 12.00 – 12.20 | Panel Discussion |
| 12.20 – 12.40 | Award ceremony and conclusion |
Call for contributions
We will solicit extended abstracts and position papers of 2–4 pages in length. Additionally, we will encourage submissions of videos or demos that highlights gaps between current theory and practice.
We are pleased to present:
- Two Best Workshop Paper Awards (150 USD each), sponsored by NOKOV Science & Technology Co., Ltd;
- Three Second Best Workshop Paper Awards (50 USD each), sponsored by Guangdong Yue Shang Venture Capital Co., Ltd;
- Five Active Participation Workshop Paper Awards (20 USD each), sponsored by Guangdong JAYIFO Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.
Winners will receive the monetary prize and a certificate.
Invited Speakers
Dr. Yanlong Huang
Assistant Professor, University of Leeds, UK.
Mrs. Franziska Krebs
PhD Candidate, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.
Prof. Alessandro Saccon
Associate Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.
Dr. Yi Ren
Technical Expert in Robotics, Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory Huawei Technologies, China.
Prof. Aude Billard
Full Professor, Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
Organizers
Kuanqi Cai
PhD Student Fellow, Italian Institute of Technology, Genova, Italy & Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Email: kuanqi.cai@iit.it
Luis F.C. Figueredo
Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
Email: figueredo@ieee.org
Marta Lagomarsino
Post-Doc, Human-Robot Interfaces and Interaction (HRII) Lab, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova, Italy.
Email: marta.lagomarsino@iit.it
Riddhiman Laha
PhD Candidate, Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Email: riddhiman.laha@tum.de
Aude Billard
Full Professor, Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Email: aude.billard@epfl.ch
Arash Ajoudani
Senior Researcher Tenured, Human-Robot Interfaces and Interaction (HRII) Lab, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova, Italy
Email: arash.ajoudani@iit.it
