special session: human-robot environment interaction design

organizer: Dr. Maliheh Ghajargar
design and human-AI interaction researcher
Department of Geography and Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

_description

as robots increasingly operate outside controlled laboratory and industrial settings [1], this session seeks to expand HRI discourse toward questions of ecological situatedness, care [2], and human-nonhuman coexistence [3].

the special session at the The 35th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2026), aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue across HRI [4], design [5], and social sciences [2], encouraging contributions that critically and creatively rethink human–robot relationships [6] in relation to land, water, climate, and living systems [7], [8], [9].

submission website
speculative prototyping session on human-robot-environment interactions, Chapman University, 2024.

_themes

robots as ecological actors and mediators
This theme focuses on robots as participants in ecological systems rather than as neutral tools. Contributions may explore how AI and robots mediate relationships between humans and environments—for example, in environmental literacy, restoration, or ecology [8]. Topics include robots as sensing and storytelling agents [10]; robotic interventions that influence human ecological awareness; and design approaches that account for environmental agency, fragility, and temporal rhythms [6]. Works that challenge anthropocentric assumptions and consider robots as actors embedded within multispecies assemblages are particularly encouraged.

tangible and embodied interaction in natural environments
This theme highlights embodied, sensory, and tangible modes of interaction between humans, robots, and environments. Relevant work may explore how robots use sound, touch, movement, or material qualities to foster attentiveness to environmental rhythms such as weather, growth cycles, or animal activity.

ethics, care, and multispecies perspectives in HRI
This theme foregrounds ethical and political questions raised by the deployment of robots in natural environments [11]. Submissions may examine issues of care, responsibility, environmental impact, and power relations among humans, robots, and nonhuman life. Relevant topics include multispecies studies of HRI [12], posthuman and more-than-human perspectives [13], environmental justice, and the risks of technological solutionism in ecological contexts. Work that critically reflects on when not to deploy robots, or that explores refusal, restraint, and alternative futures, is welcome.

design approaches, methods, and processes
the theme invites alternative methodological contributions that explore research-through-design (RtD) [14], fieldwork, and creative practices for studying HRI in natural environments. This includes interactive prototypes, provotypes, installations, storytelling, and artistic interventions that imagine alternative futures for human–robot–nature relations [7]. Such approaches expand what counts as knowledge production in RO-MAN, positioning design and making as critical tools for inquiry.

_important dates

  • initial paper submission deadline: March 15, 2026
  • notification of acceptance: May 29, 2026
  • final paper submission: June 20, 2026

_contact: maliheg@unc.edu, hrei.design@gmail.com

_references

[1]        H. R. M. Pelikan, B. Mutlu, and S. Reeves, “Making Sense of Public Space for Robot Design,” in Proceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, in HRI ’25. Melbourne, Australia: IEEE Press, Mar. 2025, pp. 152–162. Accessed: Feb. 13, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3721488.3721511

[2]        K. Winkle et al., “Feminist Human-Robot Interaction: Disentangling Power, Principles and Practice for Better, More Ethical HRI,” in Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, in HRI ’23. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Mar. 2023, pp. 72–82. doi: 10.1145/3568162.3576973.

[3]        E. Ahmed, L. D. Cosio, Ç. Genç, J. Hamari, and O. ‘Oz’ Buruk, “Co-Designing Companion Robots for the Wild: Ideating Towards a Design Space,” International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 1523–1548, Feb. 2026, doi: 10.1080/10447318.2025.2524500.

[4]        E. Ahmed, O. ‘Oz’ Buruk, and J. Hamari, “Human–Robot Companionship: Current Trends and Future Agenda,” Int J of Soc Robotics, vol. 16, no. 8, pp. 1809–1860, Aug. 2024, doi: 10.1007/s12369-024-01160-y.

[5]        A. Bischof, E. Hornecker, A. L. Krummheuer, and M. Rehm, “Re-Configuring Human-Robot Interaction,” in Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, in HRI ’22. Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan: IEEE Press, Mar. 2022, pp. 1234–1236. Accessed: Feb. 13, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3523760.3523990

[6]        K. Winkle, “Robots from Nowhere: A Case Study in Speculative Sociotechnical Design and Design Fiction for Human-Robot Interaction,” in Proceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, in HRI ’25. Melbourne, Australia: IEEE Press, Mar. 2025, pp. 1152–1165. Accessed: Feb. 13, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3721488.3721637

[7]        P. Reynolds-Cuéllar and A. F. Salazar-Gómez, “Nature-Robot Interaction,” in Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, in HRI ’23. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Mar. 2023, pp. 30–39. doi: 10.1145/3568294.3580034.

[8]        J. Dupeyroux, J. R. Serres, and S. Viollet, “AntBot: A six-legged walking robot able to home like desert ants in outdoor environments,” Science Robotics, vol. 4, no. 27, p. eaau0307, Feb. 2019, doi: 10.1126/scirobotics.aau0307.

[9]        D. L. Clark, J. M. Macedonia, J. W. Rowe, M. R. Austin, I. M. Centurione, and C. A. Valle, “Galápagos lava lizards (Microlophus bivittatus) respond dynamically to displays from interactive conspecific robots,” Behav Ecol Sociobiol, vol. 73, no. 10, p. 136, Sep. 2019, doi: 10.1007/s00265-019-2732-6.

[10]      M. M. V, G. Manikutty, D. Vijayan, A. Rangudu, and B. R. R, “When elephants nodded and dolls spoke: Bringing together robotics and storytelling for environmental literacy,” Dec. 19, 2022, arXiv: arXiv:2212.09313. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2212.09313.

[11]      P. Dauvergne, AI in the Wild: Sustainability in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2020.

[12]      M. Ghajargar, “Tellings of the Pacific Ocean: A Landscape-based Approach for Multispecies Design and HCI,” ACM J. Comput. Sustain. Soc., May 2025, doi: 10.1145/3736651.

[13]      R. Wakkary, Things We Could Design: For More Than Human-Centered Worlds. in Design Thinking, Design Theory. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2021.

[14]      J. Zimmerman, J. Forlizzi, and S. Evenson, “Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI,” in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in CHI ’07. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Apr. 2007, pp. 493–502. doi: 10.1145/1240624.1240704.