Gentiane Venture
Professor of robotics, the University of Tokyo
EVENT RECAP
H-STAR 2026 — Workshop Highlights
Held alongside IEEE RO-MAN 2026 in Kitakyushu, Japan, H-STAR brought together researchers, speakers, and participants to exchange ideas and explore emerging directions in human-aware robotics and human-robot interaction.
Through invited talks, research presentations, and open discussions, the workshop explored how robotic systems can better understand, adapt to, and interact with people.
About the Workshop
Objective
Explore how multimodal data can be systematically transformed into adaptive robot behaviors for next-generation Human–Robot Interaction (HRI). We focus on the end-to-end pipeline from clean and generalizable data curation, through learning and modeling, to real-time adaptive behavior—with emphasis on human internal states such as mind wandering, anxiety, engagement, and trust.
Workshop Goals
The workshop aimed to synthesize best practices, identify open research questions, and foster cross-disciplinary collaborations. It encouraged continued dialogue and follow-up research in human-aware robotics.
RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE
Best Presentation Award
Celebrating outstanding research contributions and presentations at H-STAR 2026, held alongside IEEE RO-MAN 2026 in Kitakyushu, Japan.
Congratulations to the Best Presentation Award recipients, and thank you to everyone who contributed to the workshop's success.
Invited Speakers
Leading experts who shared complementary perspectives at H-STAR 2026.
Workshop Program (2026 Archive)
The published 2026 schedule is preserved here for reference.
14:00-14:10
Opening
Welcome and Introduction
16:00-16:20
Break
Coffee Break
17:20-17:35
Discussion
Breakout Group Discussion
17:35-17:55
Panel
Panel Discussion & Lessons-Learned Report
17:55-18:20
Closing
Closing
2026 archive · Submissions closed
2026 Submissions Archive
Historical information from the completed H-STAR 2026 call for participation. Submissions are closed.
2026 Submission Information
The 2026 call invited work connecting multimodal human data to adaptive robot behavior—methods, datasets, studies, systems, and lessons learned, including robustness, responsible data practices, and deployment in-the-wild.
- Submission format: extended abstracts (2-4 pages, excluding references).
- Templates: LaTeX template, MS Word template, LaTeX template on Overleaf.
- Submission status: Closed — archived 2026 call for participation.
- 2026 paper submission deadline (closed): June 29th Deadline extended to July 13th
- Notification date: July 27th
- Review Process: The workshop submissions were subject to a single-blind peer review process.
The 2026 workshop planned to archive accepted submissions on its website.
Presentation visibility: The 2026 workshop included a plan for 1-minute lightning talk videos to be promoted on social media, played during breaks, and linked on the workshop website.
🏆 The 2026 workshop call included recognition of outstanding presentations through awards.
Multimodal Sensing
Gaze, speech, motion, physiological signals for HRI.
Human State Estimation
Engagement, stress, fatigue, mind wandering detection.
Data Challenges
Alignment, missing data, dataset bias, robustness.
Adaptive Learning
Supervised, RL, imitation, LLM-based interaction policies.
Online Adaptation
Real-time learning and human-in-the-loop systems.
Trustworthy Robotics
Calibration, over-reliance, transparency, human agency.
Ethics & Privacy
Biosignals in the wild: privacy, consent, data governance.
Applications
Social robots, teleoperation, assistive robots, safety-critical HRI.
Responsible Sharing
De-identification, access control, reproducibility best practices.
Organizing Committee
An interdisciplinary team spanning HRI, AI, and robotics.
Intended Audience
Who the 2026 workshop was designed for.
The workshop was designed for an interdisciplinary audience of researchers and practitioners in Human–Robot Interaction (HRI), robotics, artificial intelligence, and related fields who are interested in transforming multimodal human data into adaptive robot behavior. It is particularly relevant for those working on human state understanding, multimodal sensing and fusion, learning and modeling for interaction, and real-time behavioral adaptation.
The program also addressed researchers concerned with trustworthy and responsible robotics, including issues of human agency, over-reliance, and ethical use of sensitive data, as well as those developing or deploying adaptive robotic systems in domains such as social interaction, teleoperation, and safety-critical applications.
Human State Understanding
Modeling internal states during interaction.
Multimodal Sensing & Fusion
Combining signals reliably across modalities.
Learning & Modeling for Interaction
Policies and models grounded in HRI.
Real-time Behavioral Adaptation
Online inference and action selection.
Trustworthy & Responsible Robotics
Agency, calibration, transparency.
Safety-Critical Applications
Robustness for real-world deployment.
Sponsors
Organizations supporting the H-STAR 2026 workshop:
Contact
For questions about H-STAR or future workshop updates, reach out to the organizing team.
For inquiries about the workshop, please contact the organizing committee at: