HRI 2026 half-day workshop: Methodological Innovation in Designing Sensations and Sentiments from Robot Touch
March 16, 2026, Morning
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (in conjunction with ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) 2026)
Robotic systems increasingly engage in physical, social, and affective touch interactions with humans. To design robot-initiated touch interactions that feel meaningful, safe, and appropriate, it should not only be driven by function and efficiency, but more critically, the experience of the touch interaction, felt by the human. This raises fundamental methodological challenges. Designerly and somatic approaches are advantageous in capturing tacit and nuanced bodily experience that inform novel design ideas, however transferring the rich qualitative knowledge into effective robotic systems has not been made possible. From the roboticists and AI researchers perspective, there is a lack of tools to investigate the ephemeral phenomenon of felt sensations. To address this challenge, researchers must advance methodologies for crafting robot touch, integrating sensory, emotional, and experiential considerations into human-robot interaction (HRI) research.
Our HRI 2026 workshop aims to:
Bring together researchers from robotics, HRI, AI, design, neuroscience, healthcare, social science, and the arts to discuss methodological innovation in robot touch design.
Explore cross-disciplinary tools, frameworks, and evaluation methods that connect bodily sensation, sentiment, and robotic behaviours.
Facilitate dialogue on how human felt experience should inform design, assessment, and theory in HRI.
We welcome submissions that tackle fundamental and applied challenges in designing robot touch that resonates with human sensation and emotion.
Important dates:
Submission deadline: 15th January 25th January (extended)
Notification of acceptance: 26th January 29th January (extended)
Camera-ready deadline: 9th February
Workshop date: March 16, 2026
All deadlines are at 23:59 Anywhere on Earth (AoE) unless otherwise stated.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
Sensory and affective dimensions of robot-initiated touch
Human perception and sentiment in physical human-robot interaction
Methodological frameworks for qualitative touch evaluation
Co-design and participatory methods with end users
Tools and instruments for capturing felt experience
Cross-disciplinary approaches in affective and somatic design
Ethical, cultural, and societal implications of robot touch
Case studies, prototypes, and empirical investigations of robot touch
Studies about replicability
Submissions may encompass theoretical work, experimental studies, design case studies, toolkits, methods, and critical perspectives related to robot touch and sensory experience.
Authors are invited to submit extended abstracts (2–4 pages including references).
Manuscripts must be written in English and submitted in PDF format.
Use the ACM SIGCONF format for (US Letter).
Submissions will be reviewed on relevance, originality, clarity, and methodological soundness.
Please submit via this link.
Accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and may appear on the workshop website or in associated publication venues.
Contact:
For questions or technical issues please contact: caroline.zheng@nottingham.ac.uk, Angela.Higgins@nottingham.ac.uk