The capability to grasp and manipulate objects allows people to interact with their surrounding environment, and is key in daily working and social activities. Assistive technologies such as wheelchair-mounted robotic arms, prostheses, and supernumerary limbs have already shown their capability in providing more independence to people lacking manipulation skills due to an innate or acquired upper-limb motor disability.

This workshop aims at connecting developers, distributors, and end-users of assistive robots with expert researchers in the field of robotic manipulation to discuss how new and advanced grasp planning and control algorithms (e.g., techniques for grasping deformable objects), as well as new design paradigms for robotic hands (e.g., soft/smart materials, innovative sensing/actuation systems), have already been, or have the potential to be, adopted in assistive applications.

A special focus will also be the analysis of guidelines and best practices for a user-centric design, development and transfer of new approaches in the field from the research labs to the assistive world. For the transfer to be successful, not only the robotic solutions should work effectively and reliably, but they should, above all, be accepted by the end-users and the society.

We gratefully acknowledge the funding from the projects "HARIA - Human-Robot Sensorimotor Augmentation" (Horizon Europe, GA No. 101070292) and "THE - Tuscany Health Ecosystem" (PNRR, MUR, Italy).