Robotic One-Shot Exploration from Deep Ocean to Deep Space

Abstract

Many of the most compelling environments for scientific discovery are also among the least accessible, from the deep ocean to the outer solar system and many locations in-between. Robotic exploration of these environments has traditionally progressed through a sequence of missions that incrementally refine system design and operational strategies, with humans closely involved in both planning and real-time decision-making. This paradigm becomes infeasible when missions are extremely costly, communication is limited, and mission timelines prohibit rapid iteration. In deep ocean environments, research vessel availability affects development and deployment, and electromagnetic attenuation limits communication bandwidth. In deep space, launch windows and travel times constrain mission development, and communication delays arise from the vast distances involved. In such settings, robotic systems should succeed in a single deployment, adapting to unforeseen challenges and opportunities as they are encountered.

This workshop will explore two key questions:

(1) How can robotic systems be made more adaptable at a system level through both hardware- and software-defined capabilities?

(2) How can robotic systems be made to recognize and exploit unexpected opportunities in unknown environments?

Topics will cover a broad range of robotics technologies, including multi-modal locomotion, embodied and morphological adaptation, multi-robot and distributed exploration, uncertainty-aware adaptive sensing and perception, human-robot interaction, and autonomous science. By fostering dialogue across ocean and space exploration communities, the workshop aims to identify common challenges, highlight emerging solutions, and build a research agenda for robotic systems capable of conducting meaningful scientific exploration in environments where there may be only one chance to get it right.

Content and Objectives

The objective of this workshop is to bring together roboticists in diverse fields that may not regularly interact but nonetheless both deal with the hard problem of robotic exploration. We will focus this first workshop of its kind on bridging ocean and space exploration -- environments that could not be more different, yet have many parallels in the challenges and opportunities they present for robotic systems. The goal is to go from fine details to big picture; to examine environment- and mission-specific cases and extract more general problems and enabling technologies. The day will be filled with speakers who are experts in their subfields but who will be asked, along with the audience, to think about how their knowledge can be applied to the bigger picture.

The workshop will gather speakers and participants who develop state-of-the-art technologies for ocean and space exploration. Both of these fields are very new to the field of robotics and rapidly developing; in the past few years we have seen the first robotic systems capable of autonomous exploration in Earth’s benthic zone, and the most complex autonomous rovers yet landed on the surface of Mars.

Attendees will be engaged in three ways (1) Q&A with each of the invited speakers, including a dedicated 45-minute Q&A session in the afternoon with the full panel of speakers which will focus on ideating common challenges in ocean and space robotic exploration (2) an interactive poster session, which participants of IROS 2026 will be welcome to submit extended abstracts to for consideration, and (3) a group activity to ideate on a roadmap to one shot robotic exploration.