IEEE Humanoids 2026 puts factory labor at center of agenda

The 25th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots will take place December 6 to 9, 2026, at the Santa Clara Convention Center under the theme “Humanoids and the Future of Work.” More than 1,200 attendees from over 70 countries are expected, with over 200 paper submissions and acceptance decisions due October 6. The conference intentionally shifts its traditional focus on walking, balance, and manipulation to include labor conditions, safety certification, and economic impact, reflecting the emergence of humanoids as operational factory and logistics equipment. Commercial deployments frame the agenda: Boston Dynamics shipped its first commercial Atlas units to Hyundai’s Robotics Metaplant Application Center and Google DeepMind in 2026. Figure AI deployed 40 Figure 03 units at BMW’s Spartanburg plant after an 11‑month Figure 02 pilot that supported production of over 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles. Agility Robotics’ Digit works commercial shifts at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada and a GXO Logistics warehouse in Georgia. Apptronik opened Robot Park, a nearly 90,000‑square‑foot facility in Austin, where Apollo 2 robots perform production tasks to generate training data in partnership with Google DeepMind. Special topic chairs Gary Bolles and Nell Watson will shape programming on deployment governance, worker impact, and certification. The Loco‑Manipulation Challenge will have 10 to 15 teams tackle mobility, manipulation, dexterity, and reasoning tasks, with scoring that rewards autonomy while still granting points for teleoperated performance. The core barrier is whole‑body control—coordinating gait and arm motion through a unified policy. Vision‑language‑action models are a major topic: Figure AI’s Helix model runs on Figure 03, Google DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics models pair with Atlas, and Apptronik’s Robot Park feeds real production data back into training. The paper program covers biomechanics, actuators, dexterous hands, model predictive control, reinforcement learning, humanoid faces, benchmarks, and ethical challenges. Workshop and tutorial proposals, competition team proposals, and supplementary videos are due August 3; early registration closes October 16, and camera‑ready papers are due October 26.