Southwest Robotics Symposium 2026

Nov 2, 2026 - Nov 3, 2026 · Memorial Union, Arizona Ballroom (Second Floor), 301 E. Orange St., Tempe, Arizona · by School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University

The Southwest Robotics Symposium (SWRS) returns to ASU’s Tempe campus for two days of robotics research, demos and networking. This year’s theme, “Robotics in Extreme Environments,” looks at how robotics will transform industries, health care and human life, with a special focus on space exploration. Day one focuses on space robotics and opens with a welcome from Laurie Leshin, University Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration. Speakers include Hiro Ono, Keenan Albee, Srikanth Saripalli and Maria Saboia. Day two focuses on assistive robotics, with talks by Blake Hannaford, Tapomayukh “Tapo” Bhattacharjee and Matthew E. Taylor. Both days include ASU faculty talks, poster lightning talks, and company and faculty booths, followed by lab tours at ASU’s Tempe and Polytechnic campuses. The symposium wraps up with a best poster award. Topics include space robotics; environmental and field robotics; medical, assistive and wearable robotics; manipulation and locomotion; bio-inspired and soft robotics; foundation models in robotics; and human-AI-robot systems. The symposium is free, but registration is required.

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