SWAG presents Tailored to Move workshop at ICRA 2026

The SWAG project is excited to present Tailored to Move: Wearable Robotics for Motion Assistance, a full-day workshop to be held on 5 June 2026 as part of 2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, in Vienna, Austria. Conceived as a high-level forum for exchange across wearable robotics, the workshop will bring together researchers, developers and practitioners working on technologies for motion assistance, rehabilitation, human augmentation and user-centred robotic design.

Supported by SWAG alongside VIVO Hub and other contributing initiatives, the workshop has been developed to foreground the questions that are increasingly shaping the field: how wearable robotic systems can become more adaptive, more human-centred, and more responsive to the realities of use in clinical, assistive and everyday settings. The workshop description places particular emphasis on user-centred design, comfort, sensing, personalised actuation, context-aware assistance, health and user impact, rehabilitation, independence, and the ethical and regulatory dimensions of human-facing robotics, including the implications of the EU AI Act.

Designed as an interactive and interdisciplinary event, Tailored to Move will combine invited talks with live demos, poster sessions, flash poster pitches, expert panels, speed mentoring, and networking opportunities across the day. This format reflects the workshop’s ambition to foster meaningful exchange across disciplines and career stages, while creating space for discussion around both technical innovation and real-world deployment.

SWAG is also directly represented in the programme, with a presentation by Panagiotis Polygerinos, placing the project within a broader landscape of initiatives advancing wearable robotics and motion assistance.

The workshop programme spans a wide range of topics central to the future of wearable robotics. Sessions will address exosuit and hardware, control strategies tuned to individual movement, learning and simulation in exosuit design, and wearables beyond motion assistance. Two panel discussions are also planned: one on user-centric design, comfort, ergonomics and long-term wearability of rehabilitation devices, and another on the future of exosuit design and the implications of the EU AI Act. Poster and demo activities are integrated throughout the day, culminating in poster awards and closing remarks.The workshop brings together an international group of speakers from across robotics, wearable systems and rehabilitation technologies. The speaker list includes Matteo Cianchetti, Kyu-Jin Cho, Wenlong Zhang, Panagiotis Polygerinos, Jonathan Rossiter, Massimo Sartori, Lorenzo Masia, Federico Maseiro, Tom Erez, Vittorio Caggiano, Helen Huang, Chris Kent, and Jan Babič.

The organising committee includes Panagiotis Polygerinos of Hellenic Mediterranean University, Jan Babič of Jožef Stefan Institute, Jonathan Rossiter and Richard Suphapol Diteesawat of the University of Bristol, Mohamed Irfan Refai of the University of Twente, Letizia Gionfrida of King’s College London, Thomas George Thuruthel of University College London, and Aikaterini Smyrli of Athena RC.

With Tailored to Move, SWAG presents a workshop that places technological excellence in direct conversation with usability, ethics, wellbeing and human experience. As wearable robotics continues to evolve, this kind of forum is essential for bringing together the research communities, application domains and design perspectives that will shape the future of motion-assistive technologies.

Find out more in the official workshop site here