ICRA 2026 in Vienna: Robots, RoboTac, and a Week to Remember

Post's content provided by: CPS-Lab Team

When:
1–5 June 2026
Where:
VIECON, Vienna, Austria
Workshop:
RoboTac, 5 June 2026

This June, CPS-Lab traded Uppsala for Vienna and joined ICRA 2026. For five busy days, the conference halls were packed with talks, demonstrations, old friends, new collaborators—and seemingly every kind of robot that can roll, walk, grasp, dance, or play football. Yes, we were there with a workshop paper, but this recap is less about plots and more about everything that made the week memorable.

A CPS-Lab researcher standing beside the red ICRA 2026 Vienna sign — Officially checked in and ready to explore ICRA 2026.

Robots in every direction

ICRA is one of those rare places where walking between sessions becomes an event of its own. Around every corner there was another live demonstration, a new machine to inspect, or a crowd forming around something unexpected. We met humanoids and quadrupeds, watched robot football, and saw an impressively varied robot parade take over the exhibition floor.

Humanoid and quadruped robots demonstrating together at the ICRA exhibition — A few of the many robots sharing the exhibition floor.

A large and diverse group of robots gathered for a photo at ICRA 2026 — Possibly the conference's most mechanically diverse group photo.

The ICRA robot parade brought an impressively varied cast.

Vienna after hours

On Wednesday evening, laptops gave way to chandeliers at ICRA's Imperial Night at the Hofburg Palace and Spanish Riding School. Between live music, Austrian food, conversation, and a little dancing, Vienna made sure the social programme was every bit as memorable as the technical one.

Musicians in red historical dress performing outside the Hofburg Palace — A musical welcome outside the Hofburg.

ICRA attendees gathering under blue light and chandeliers at Imperial Night — Conference networking, Viennese style.

Conference attendees dancing together in an ornate room at the Hofburg — Yes, a robotics conference in Vienna can include dancing.

A short research interlude: TouchDrive at RoboTac

On Friday, 5 June, we rounded out the week at RoboTac 2026, ICRA's full-day workshop on tactile perception and manipulation. Our contribution was the workshop paper TouchDrive: Electronics-Free Tactile Sensing Interface for Assistive Grasping. In one sentence: TouchDrive uses a passive pneumatic interface to turn contact at a robot gripper into feedback a person can feel, helping with the gentle grasping of delicate objects.

TouchDrive: Electronics-Free Tactile Sensing Interface for Assistive Grasping

Authors: Jing Xu, Xuezhi Niu, Didem Gürdür Broo, and Klas Hjort

A heartfelt thank-you to all of the paper's authors for the work behind TouchDrive and for making our RoboTac contribution possible. This workshop paper was a true collaborative effort, and we are grateful to every author who helped bring it to Vienna.

Preview of the TouchDrive RoboTac workshop poster — Our RoboTac poster—select the image to open the full-resolution PDF.

Conference souvenirs, the unofficial kind

Alongside research notes and new ideas, our camera roll came home with a few small reminders of the week: a perfectly on-theme place to sit, and one final Viennese pastry before the trip home.

Red cardboard seats printed with Reinforcement learning in progress and keep sitting — The most on-theme seating instruction at the conference.

A Viennese pastry held in one hand — A final Vienna research-fuel stop before heading home.

Until next time

We left Vienna with fresh ideas, new connections, full camera rolls, and a renewed appreciation for how much fun the robotics community can fit into five days. Thank you to the ICRA and RoboTac organisers, everyone who stopped to talk with us, and all the colleagues and friends who made the week such a good one. See you at the next conference!

Photo and video credit: CPS-Lab team archive