Sustainability Robotics for Environmental Sensing

Overview

The field of sustainbaility robotics is advancing to address urgent challenges in environmental monitoring and ecological stewardship. By integrating aerial, aquatic, terrestrial, and soft robotic capabilities, these systems can adapt to diverse terrains and conditions, enabling versatile and context aware sensing. This workshop emphasizes sustainability in design and deployment, from materials and navigation to the role of robots as active participants that coexist with ecosystems while minimizing disturbance. Discussions will focus on high impact target environments, from extreme climates to fragile or remote ecosystems, and on ensuring that solutions are shaped through local community engagement. Bringing together roboticists with ecologists, biologists, and anthropologists, the workshop seeks to define how multi-modal robots can be sustainable and socially responsible in real world contexts.

Date: June 1st, 2026 Time: 8:50 am - 12:30 pm Location: Vienna

Aim & Scope

This workshop will bring together robotics scientists, ecologists, biologists, and anthropologists to explore how sustainability robots can support biodiversity and climate challenges. The aim is to rethink sustainability in robotics by advancing designs that minimize disturbance and coexist with ecosystems, while addressing urgent needs in fragile and remote environments. Areas of interest include: sustainable and bio-inspired multi-modal platforms for air, water, and land; biodegradable, regenerative, and environmentally friendly materials; robotics for extreme environments such as rainforests, polar regions, and mountain lakes; and animal–robot interaction moving toward coexistence within natural societies. By bridging ecological insight and technical innovation, the workshop seeks to define new pathways for sustainable, context aware, and impactful robotic systems.

Topics

Sustainability in Robotics: multi-modal mobility, bio-inspired and biodegradable materials, self-healing systems, efficient flight, modeling and control.
Extreme Environments: robots for biodiversity monitoring, climate observation, disaster response in rainforests, volcanoes, mountain lakes, Arctic/Antarctic, and other remote areas.
Animal–Robot Interaction: integration into animal societies, robophysical models, bio-inspired behavior studies, non-intrusive monitoring, coexistence strategies.
Community-Driven Design: incorporating local knowledge to ensure context-specific and effective deployment.
Open Questions: sustainability frameworks, identifying target environments, and methods for meaningful local engagement.