Sensors and Actuators for Dexterous Manipulation: Bridging Hardware and Application Needs
A full-day interdisciplinary workshop bringing together researchers in tactile sensing, actuation, haptics, teleoperation, robot learning, and manipulation systems to connect component-level hardware innovation with the real demands of dexterous robotic manipulation.
When: Sunday, September 27, 2026 · 8:30 am – 5:30 pm
Where: IROS 2026, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Format: In-person with remote access for talks, panels, and poster interaction
Define actionable performance metrics, uncover unmet application needs, and explore co-design principles linking hardware advances to robust manipulation in the real world.
About the workshop
This workshop will bring together leaders across materials, wearable devices, and robotic systems to examine how emerging sensing and actuation technologies can directly enable robust, high-performance dexterous manipulation. A new theme of the workshop is the explicit connection between hardware innovations and the functional demands of robotic manipulation systems, rather than focusing on a single technology or application domain. Discussions will focus on defining actionable metrics, identifying application-driven needs, and exploring co-design principles that connect physical technologies with task-level manipulation capabilities. Through keynote talks, panels, and interactive sessions, we aim to foster cross-disciplinary dialogues and long-term collaborations across researchers in hardware innovations and robotic system functions.
Dexterous robotic manipulation remains one of the most demanding frontiers in robotics, requiring tight coordination between algorithms, sensing, actuation, control, and system-level integration. While significant progress has been made through advances in control and planning algorithms as well as the development of more capable hardware, these efforts are often pursued separately. We argue that achieving robust and versatile dexterous manipulation requires closer integration between algorithmic advances and innovations in sensing and actuation.
Emerging sensor and actuator technologies can significantly enhance manipulation capabilities by improving precision, tactile perception, and state estimation. Moreover, with the growing use of teleoperation and imitation learning, new sensing and actuation interfaces—particularly haptic and wearable devices—can enable more effective transfer of human manipulation skills to robotic systems. These developments highlight the need for stronger collaboration between researchers developing physical technologies and those focusing on manipulation algorithms and applications.
Topics of interest
Important dates
A full day of talks, demos, and discussion
The structure is designed to encourage interaction, with short blocks of invited talks followed by lightning talks, demos, poster discussion, and a concluding panel.
An interdisciplinary organizing team
The organizing team brings together expertise in tactile sensing, wearable devices, robotic manipulation, haptic systems, soft actuation, and robot learning, with substantial experience organizing workshops at top robotics venues including ICRA, RSS, RoboSoft, and MARSS.
