CFP: IEEE RO-MAN 2026 Special Session on “Human Modeling for Symbiotic and Adaptive Interactions with Robots”
Gloria Beraldo
[Apologies for multiple posting]
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CALL FOR PAPERS
IEEE RO-MAN 2026 Special Session on “Human Modeling for Symbiotic and Adaptive Interactions with Robots”
Important Information:
Submission deadline: March 15, 2026
Code of the special session: i6shf
Submissions should be made through the Papercept website: https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/scripts/start.pl
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Aim
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The growing reliability, efficiency, and computational capabilities of robotic platforms are pushing the design of innovative services that see robots acting and interacting in close collaboration with humans in both common-life and working scenarios. The effective use of robots in ecological environments is closely tied to the ability to synthesize safe, socially compliant, and symbiotic behaviors. Furthermore, different types of robots (e.g., mobile, humanoid, desktop, pet) with different interaction skills and scenarios require hybrid interaction mechanisms (e.g., gesture, voice, touch, implicit through gaze, or other social cues). For truly adaptive and symbiotic interactions, robots need models that capture human behavioral dynamics, mental states, expectations, and intentions. Designing models capable of representing humans’ physical, cognitive, and social characteristics while integrating them with robotic control and interaction strategies remains a major research challenge. This special session fosters a multidisciplinary dialogue to design novel human-mediated robots by discussing aspects such as: a) Co-design of behaviors for mutual adaptation between humans and robots; b) Modeling human cognition, physical states, and social dynamics to support adaptive interactions; c) Metrics and benchmarks to evaluate acceptability, efficacy, and symbiotic quality of interactions; d) ethical considerations in designing cooperative and human-aware robots; e) hybrid approaches to enhance legibility, communication, and seamless collaboration between humans and robots. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the proposed Special Session and the scientific, technological, and ethical impact of such emerging human-robot interaction paradigms, it perfectly fits with the audience of RO-MAN and with the theme of the current edition focusing on “Realizing Human-Robot Symbiosis with AI”. It is in line with the special sessions organized in the last three editions of RO-MAN (respectively 6, 8, and 9 papers).
Topics of interest
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Here is a list of (some) relevant topics for the special session:
Adaptive and Personalized Interaction with Humans
Models of human behaviors, skills, and cognition, contextualized to Human-Robot Interaction
Methods and Protocols for Safe and Effective Robot Autonomy in Human-Centered Studies, including semi-autonomous approaches (e.g., shared control, shared autonomy)
Situation awareness and human intention recognition
Social navigation
Human-Aware Robot Behaviors
Theory of Mind and Cognitive Theories Applied to Robotics
Hybrid physical and cognitive models
Symbiotic interactions between humans and robots
Instructions for authors
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Papers submitted to the special sessions will undergo the same review process as the regular papers and will appear in the main conference proceedings if accepted.
Submissions should be made through the IEEE RO-MAN conference website on PaperCept: https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/scripts/start.pl
Authors should specify the code of the special session when submitting their contributions (i6shf).
A manuscript can be 6-8 pages, including references. For the final submission, a manuscript should be 6 pages, with 2 additional pages allowed at an extra charge (See the official submission site for further information). All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process.
Authors should use the templates provided by the electronic submission system. The templates for US Letter format paper should be used. Please refer to the call for papers of the conference for additional instructions about the length and the formatting style: https://ro-man2026.org/call-for-paper.
Special Session code: i6shf
Paper Submission: March 15, 2026
Conference: August 24-28, 2026
Do not forget the code and select the special session paper.
Organizers
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Antonio Andriella, IRII, CSIC-UPC, Spain
Gloria Beraldo, CNR-ISTC, Italy
Leticia Mara Berto, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Riccardo De Benedictis, CNR-ISTC, Italy
Francesca Fracasso, CNR-ISTC, Italy
Alberto Olivares-Alarcos, IRII, CSIC-UPC, Spain
Phani Teja Singamaneni, INRIA, France
Masaki Takahashi, Keio University, Japan
Alessandro Umbrico, CNR-ISTC, Italy