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It is a pleasure to share with you that we are organizing the workshop “Minds and Bodies: Co-Design for the Future of Soft Manipulation” at the upcoming Robosoft Conference, to be held on Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 in Kanazawa, Japan.
Soft robotic manipulators offer huge potential for adaptive interaction with complex environments. Yet, unlocking their full capabilities requires rethinking design not as a linear process, but as an integrated, co-evolving relationship between morphology, control, and task requirements. This technical workshop brings together researchers exploring the frontiers of co-design where body and brain are developed in synergy to achieve efficient and effective manipulation. We will spotlight emerging focus areas that promise to redefine the design process of soft robots.
We offer two tracks for researchers and practitioners to participate in the workshop: (1) an emerging co-design ideas track presenting ongoing or recently published research aligned with the workshop themes, (2) a co-design challenge for co-optimizing body and brain of soft robotic manipulators (Canceled).
For both tracks, researchers and practitioners are invited to submit an extended abstract of up to 2 pages (see more information below).
Emerging Co-Design Ideas Track
We invite submissions that touch, among others, the following topics of interest:
• Computational design and optimization for soft manipulators and grippers
• Co-design and optimization using differentiable simulators
• Hardware-in-the-loop and sim-to-real feedback for soft systems
• Material intelligence and design-integrated fabrication
• Parametric and generative representations of soft robot morphology
• Foundation models for generative soft robot design and control
• Data-driven morphology generation and AI-guided design evaluation
• Integrated design evaluation metrics such as safety, usability, ergonomics, manufacturability, durability, sustainability, or regulatory compliance
• Human-centered and task-aware design of soft manipulators
• Multi-objective and compositional optimization
• Non-convex optimization and convexification of co-design problems
• Co-optimization and learning of reduced-order models, proprioception systems, and/or model-based soft robot controllers
• Simulation of soft robots / elastic structures with a focus on efficiency, differentiability, parallelization, and contact resolution
• Prototyping, realization, and (large-scale) experimentation for validating soft robot designs and reducing the sim-to-real gap
Authors may also find our holistic co-design perspective helpful for identifying relevant, emerging, and promising research directions: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03761
Co-Design Challenge Track
We are organizing a co-design challenge focused on jointly optimizing the morphology and controllers of soft robots. To help participants get started quickly and feel comfortable with soft-robot co-design, we are providing extensive resources, including a clear problem formulation, starter ideas, and both software and hardware tooling:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yf8MvDHUYd3WwRPt6C_dhj_CNnG1Wet6NaWneDtVy7I/edit?usp=sharing
While teams are welcome to work with any soft robotic manipulator, we specifically encourage (and support with detailed materials) co-optimizing manipulation on the Compliance Robotics Emio parallel soft manipulator, which will be available for hands-on experimentation during the conference.
If you would like to participate in the co-design challenge, you must also submit an extended abstract describing your proposed idea and methodology for this problem setting (see instructions below).
Extended Abstract Submission Instructions
Formatting guidelines: 2 pages IEEE us letter conference template
Submission deadline: March 21, 2026
Submission portal: https://forms.gle/y7twKnicC5c5Pvro7
Optional material: Authors may include short video demonstrations by providing a link to YouTube, Google Drive, or a similar platform (check it is visible in modalita anonima)
Poster specifications: A0 format, portrait orientation
We particularly encourage submissions from students and young researchers. All accepted submissions will be pitched during a three-minute lightning talk and presented during a subsequent poster session.
A 250-euro cash prize, sponsored by Compliance Robotics, will be awarded to the best extended abstract and presentation.
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