The 19th International Workshop on Networked Robotics and Communication Systems (NetRobiCS)
Monday, May 18, 2026 ● 08:15 – 17:30 ● Room: Kaede
Robotic networks have emerged as a transformative force with the potential to reshape industries, enhance our daily lives, and venture into the most challenging environments on Earth and beyond. At the heart of this transformation lies the critical aspect of communication and networking, enabling robots to operate effectively, share data and collaborate seamlessly.
In this era of interconnected devices, robots rely on advanced communication protocols and networks to function efficiently in diverse environments. Whether in manufacturing, healthcare, autonomous vehicles, or space exploration, the ability of robots to communicate with each other and with humans is transforming industries and pushing the boundaries of technological innovation.
The frontier of research foresees the deployment of highly autonomic and integrated scenarios where heterogeneous ground, aerial and/or marine robots coordinate with each other and with the existing sensing and processing infrastructures to accomplish complex tasks. On the one side, this implies proposing and investigating novel M2M solutions and network protocols to enable the data communication on the aerial and ground segments while taking into account the novel possibilities offered by the emerging technologies (e.g. 5G/6G and LEO satellite communications). The communication technologies must be paired with proper control mobility functions to support swarm operations and to instill coordinated behaviors. On the other side, the data processing on the mobile edges may take advantage of emerging federated and embedded AI techniques to drastically reduce the latency of the decision process while limiting the amount of data transferred from the robotic networks.
Building on the success of the previous 18 editions, the NetRobiCS 2026 workshop aims at bringing together state-of-the-art contributions on the design, specification, and evaluation of architectures, algorithms, applications, and protocols for current and future applications of wireless ground, marine and aerial robotic networks.
General Chairs
Enrico Natalizio (Technology Innovation Institute (TII), UAE)
Yannis Paschalidis (Boston University, USA)
Program Chairs
Christelle Caillouet (Université Côte d’Azur, France)
Marco Di Felice (University of Bologna, Italy)
Jennifer Simonjan (Technology Innovation Institute (TII), UAE)
Web and Publicity Chair
Lorenzo Gigli, University of Bologna, Italy
Alfonso Esposito, University of Bologna, Italy
08:15–08:30
Welcome
08:30–10:00
Session 1: Network control and planning
Where is my mind? Decentralized Control Migration for Long-Endurance Robot Swarms
Gaetano Pispisa and Alessandro Giuffrè (University of Messina, Italy); Davide Giacalone (STMicroelectronics, Italy); Arcangelo Bruna (ST Microelectronics, Italy); Giovanni Merlino (University of Messina & National Interuniversity Consortium for Informatics (CINI), Italy); Francesco Longo (University of Messina, Italy)
Communication-aware Robot Motion Planning via Online Estimation of Radio Maps
Daniel Gordon (Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GmBH, Germany); Mohammad Bariq Khan (Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GmBH, Germany & Technical University Berlin, Germany); Tommaso Zugno (Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GmbH, Germany); Yiqun Wu (Huawei, China); Mate Boban(Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GmbH, Germany); Xueli An (Huawei Technologies, Germany); Falko Dressler (TU Berlin, Germany)
Command and Control of Drones over 5G
Enrique Caballero and Christian Bettstetter (University of Klagenfurt, Austria); Dominic A. Schupke (Airbus Defence and Space GmbH & Airbus Central Research and Technology, Germany); Aymen Fakhreddine (University of Klagenfurt, Austria)
10:00–10:30
Coffee Break
10:30–11:30
Keynote 1: Prof. Xavier Défago
Title: Rethinking Robot Coordination When Communication Matters
Head of Research Lab. on Dependable Distributed Systems (D2S)
Science Tokyo, Japan
11:30–12:30
Session 2: Optimization of Swarm Robotics
Discovery Storm: Scalability Analysis of DDS and Zenoh in Large-Scale Wireless Robotic Networks
Sanghoon Lee (DGIST, Korea (South)); Yeonwoo Choi and Jiyeong Chae (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Korea (South)); Kyung-Joon Park (DGIST, Korea (South))
Remote Reinforcement Learning over Unreliable Channels with Homomorphic State Representations
Pietro Talli, Federico Mason and Federico Chiariotti (University of Padova, Italy); Andrea Zanella (University of Padova, Italy & CNIT, Italy)
12:30–14:00
Lunch Break
14:00–15:30
Session 3: Robotics for 6G
Keynote 2 : Dr. Xueli An
Title: The Future of Robotics in the 6G Era
Head of 6G Network Architecture Research Group at Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GmbH, Munich Research Center, Germany
O-RACES: Proactive AI-driven Scheduling in Open RAN for 6G-Networked Humanoid Robots
Niklas A. Wagner and Christian Wietfeld (TU Dortmund University, Germany)
15:30–16:00
Afternoon Coffee Break
16:00–17:30
Session 4: Applications of Swarm Robotics
Who Leads the Spread? Strategic Nodes in Heterogeneous Human-Machine Networks for Resilient Robotics
Carmela Comito (ICAR – National Research Council of Italy, Italy); Annalisa Socievole (National Research Council of Italy, Italy)
Hybrid Collision Avoidance Framework for UAV Swarm Operations for PPDR Missions
Diogo Correia (University of Aveiro, Portugal); Joaquim Ramos (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal); Pedro Rito (University of Aveiro, Portugal & Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal); Duarte Raposo (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal); Susana Sargento (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)
Asynchronous SLM Orchestrator for Mission-Critical Robotic Telesurgery Networks
Rahman Abdul Rafi, Christian Stephens, Shakil Ahmed and Ashfaq Khokhar (Iowa State University, USA)