Today is 28 September 2026. The humanoid robot events still on the calendar, from this Monday through 31 December, fit on one page. IROS opened yesterday in Pittsburgh and runs through Thursday. The summer shows are already behind us. The World Robot Conference sat in Beijing from 19 to 23 August, and the World Humanoid Robot Games ran 22 to 24 August. ICRA was June, in Vienna. What follows is what is left.
Key takeaways
- IROS is in session now, through 1 October, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.
- The next date that changes a plan is 6 October, when Humanoids 2026 says it will send paper decisions. Early-bird registration for that conference closes 16 October. ROSCon UK closes 14 October.
- November puts HRFEST in Callao on 5–7, CoRL in Austin on 9–12, and Humanoid Asia in Shanghai on 12–13. Shanghai sits on CoRL's workshop day.
- December stacks a summit in San Mateo on 1–2, IEEE Humanoids in Santa Clara on 6–9, and a humanoid industry exhibition in Shanghai on 9–11. That show opens on the last day of the Santa Clara conference.
Pittsburgh is still in session
IROS is the IEEE and RSJ conference on intelligent robots and systems, one of the large research meetings of the year. This edition runs 27 September to 1 October at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, 1000 Fort Duquesne Boulevard, Pittsburgh. Howie Choset, of Carnegie Mellon, is general chair. The program the organizers describe is the wide one: perception, learning, control, and human-robot interaction, plus workshops and a show floor. A humanoid paper can land here. So can a paper about a warehouse arm. If you are not already in the hall, Thursday is the last day.
Edinburgh keeps a humanoid hour on Thursday
ROSCon UK is 21–23 October at the Pollock Estate of the University of Edinburgh, on the edge of Holyrood Park. The Tartan Robotics Collective is running it with the Open Source Robotics Foundation. Wednesday the 21st is day zero: tours of the Informatics buildings and the National Robotarium, plus birds-of-a-feather rooms. Thursday is workshops. Friday is the main program, including a keynote from Lars Grimstad of Saga Robotics.
The slot I would cross a city for is Thursday at 11:30, in the Holyrood room: a deep-dive titled Humanoid Teleoperation. The same morning, at 9:30 in that room, there is one called Plans for Physical AI. Teleoperation means a person driving the robot. A deep-dive runs longer than Friday's 15-minute talks. ROS, the Robot Operating System, is the rest of the week.
Late registration is still open, and it closes 14 October. A professional ticket is £390. A student ticket is £130. Lightning talks, two minutes each, close the same day at 23:59 BST. Early-bird prices ended on 31 August.
Callao on Thursday, Austin the following Monday
HRFEST is 5–7 November at the Universidad Nacional del Callao, Avenida Juan Pablo II 306, Bellavista, Callao, Peru. It is hybrid, so a paper can go up as a video plus a live question period. IEEE lists it as a sponsored conference, record 71784, and accepted papers go toward IEEE Xplore if they meet the library's scope and quality bar. The flagship theme is humanoid robotics, bipedal walking, and legged locomotion. The call also takes broader AI papers, so the program will run wider than the title.
The university's 24 August note splits the three days. The 5th is leadership and innovation. The 6th is a startup workshop and the in-person finals of three contests: Mini-humanoid, Smart Factory, and Innovation Pitch. The 7th brings invited researchers from France, Brazil, Canada, and Chile. Camera-ready papers are due 15 October, Peru time. Submissions themselves are already closed.
The following Monday, CoRL opens in Austin. The Conference on Robot Learning runs 9–12 November. The main meeting is 9–11. Workshops are the 12th. Registration is open. The organizers are using three buildings: the JW Marriott at 110 East 2nd Street, the Hilton at 500 East 4th Street, and Bass Hall at 2350 Robert Dedman Drive. CoRL is where a learned policy either works on a robot or it does not. A new chassis looking for a booth belongs in December.
Humanoid Asia lists 12–13 November in Shanghai. The organizer page describes two parallel meetings, one on chips and communication and one on materials, and it does not name a hall. The 12th is also CoRL's workshop day in Austin. The shipment totals on that Shanghai page read like marketing copy, so I am keeping the dates and leaving the totals out.
December puts San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Pudong on one fortnight
The Humanoids Summit is 1–2 December at the San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo. The organizer calls this the fifth global edition and the third time the summit has sat in Silicon Valley. The room is industry, investment, research, and policy. Humanoids opens in Santa Clara on the 6th, four days after this summit closes.
On 2–4 December, IEEE ISR/SIAS meets at INTEX Osaka. The long name joins intelligence and safety for robotics with the safety of industrial automated systems. The subject is people and robots in the same space, including the collaborative arms factories already use. The paper deadline was extended to 5 September and has passed. The site lists notifications on 18 October and 2 November.
Then the meeting I would book first. Humanoids 2026 is the 25th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 6–9 December at the Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Parkway. Sunday the 6th is public forums. Monday the 7th is workshops and tutorials. Tuesday and Wednesday, the 8th and the 9th, are the papers. Competitions run the 7th through the 9th, and the organizers are putting an exhibition in the building. Paper decisions are dated 6 October. Early-bird registration closes 16 October. Camera-ready papers are due 26 October. The workshop call dates its decision to 28 September, the day this piece goes up. The Hyatt next door, at 5101 Great America Parkway, holds a room block through 17 November at 5:00 p.m. Eastern, booked under IEEE HUMANOIDS.
The same Wednesday the papers are still on in Santa Clara, a trade show opens in Shanghai. The Shanghai International Humanoid Robot and Robotics Industry Chain Exhibition, HRIE, lists 9–11 December at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, 2345 Longyang Road, Pudong. Hongyuan Sinoexpo is the host named on the English page. The organizer's area figure is 25,000 square metres, covering components, complete machines, and integration. That square-metre figure is the organizer's claim. Santa Clara on the morning of the 9th and Hall W5 in Pudong are two trips.
The nine dates, in order
| Dates | Event | Where | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Sep–1 Oct | IROS 2026 | Pittsburgh | Broad robotics research. Already open. Ends Thursday. |
| 21–23 Oct | ROSCon UK | Edinburgh | ROS conference. Humanoid teleoperation deep-dive, Thursday 11:30. |
| 5–7 Nov | HRFEST 2026 | Callao, Peru | Hybrid. IEEE record 71784. Mini-humanoid finals on the 6th. |
| 9–12 Nov | CoRL 2026 | Austin | Robot learning. Main meeting 9–11, workshops on the 12th. |
| 12–13 Nov | Humanoid Asia | Shanghai | Industry meetings on chips, links, and materials. Hall not named. |
| 1–2 Dec | Humanoids Summit | San Mateo | Industry, investment, and policy. Fifth global edition. |
| 2–4 Dec | IEEE ISR/SIAS | Osaka | Safety when people and robots share a room. |
| 6–9 Dec | Humanoids 2026 | Santa Clara | The IEEE humanoid conference. Forums, then workshops, then papers. |
| 9–11 Dec | HRIE Shanghai | Pudong | Industry-chain exhibition. Opens as Santa Clara is still in session. |
Deadlines you can still make
From this Monday, the clocks that have not rung yet are short. Humanoids paper decisions, 6 October. ROSCon UK registration and lightning talks, 14 October, with the talks closing at 23:59 BST. HRFEST camera-ready copies, 15 October. Humanoids early-bird registration, 16 October, and camera-ready papers, 26 October. ISR/SIAS notifications, 18 October and 2 November. The Santa Clara hotel block, 17 November.
A handful of trade-show calendars also list a Chengdu embodied-intelligence exhibition for 16–18 October and a Shenzhen one for 26–28 November. I could not find an organizer page I trust for either, so they stay off this list until one appears.
If you can travel once, I would take the first week of December in the Bay Area. The San Mateo summit and the Santa Clara conference are four days apart, and together they are the humanoid meeting of the year. If the work you care about is a learned policy, Austin in the second week of November is the other trip. IROS, if you are reading this from the convention center, is the one already happening.