Perception, Learning, and Navigation
This workshop will discuss core challenges and new solutions in perception, learning and navigation for autonomous robots operating over long terms in the wild, complex and unstructured environments. With robotics applications in the wild broadening from environmental monitoring and agriculture to autonomous driving and disaster relief, the requirement for long-term robust, adaptive, and intelligent systems becomes essential. This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners to share new technologies in sensor processing, scene understanding, mapping, localization, and machine learning to address the unique demands of long-term operations in the wild, including varying terrain, adverse weather, dynamic lighting conditions, and seasonal changes. Our goal is to foster collaboration and move toward new frontiers in robust multimodal perception, self-supervised learning, online/continual/lifelong learning, simulation-to-reality transfer, and explainable AI to enable safe, reliable and long-term autonomous robots in the wild. This workshop will feature presentations, papers, and interactive discussion by leading experts, highlighting recent developments and future research directions for enhanced long-term performance of robotic systems in the wild.
Venue
Room Strauss 2, VIECON (formerly Messe Wien), Vienna, Austria.
Call for Papers
The workshop will cover a range of topics, including but not limited to:
- Long-term autonomy, persistent mapping, and online/continual/lifelong learning in ever-changing environments.
- Robust perception in harsh and dynamic conditions in the wild.
- Sensor fusion for robust long-term state estimation and scene understanding.
- Self-supervised/unsupervised/weakly-supervised learning in LoWi.
- Terrain classification and traversability analysis in LoWi.
- Sim-to-real transfer and domain adaptation in LoWi.
- Foundational models and their applications in LoWi.
- Safety, long-term reliability, uncertainty quantification, and interpretability in LoWi.
- Novel sensors, long-term or multi-season datasets, and benchmarks in LoWi.
- Reinforcement learning for navigation and interaction in dynamic, unpredictable scenarios.
- Data generation, augmentation, and active learning for the wild.
- Applications with a clear focus on long-term perception, learning, and navigation challenges.
Submission Guidelines
- We invite submissions in two tracks:
- Full papers (4 to 8 pages): Eligible for Lightning Talks, Awards, and the Journal Special Issue.
- Extended abstracts (up to 2 pages): Accepted abstracts will be presented in the Poster Session.
- All submissions must use the standard IEEE RAS conference template and present research relevant to the workshop’s themes.
- Submitted papers must not be under review or have been published in another archival venue.
- A double-blind peer-review process will be implemented. Papers will be evaluated based on their novelty, technical soundness, clarity, and relevance to the workshop.
- Accepted papers will be hosted on the workshop website but will not appear in the official IEEE Xplore proceedings, allowing for future submission to journals or major conferences.
- All accepted papers will be invited for either a spotlight oral or a poster presentation at the workshop.
- A selected number of high-quality full papers will be invited to submit an extended version of their work to a Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics (T-FR).
- Papers should be submitted through the CMT portal: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/LoWi2026
Awards and Travel Grants
Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, we are pleased to announce the following awards and opportunities:
- We will present a Best Student Presentation Award and a Best Presentation Award to recognize outstanding contributions to the workshop. Winners will receive a certificate and a cash prize. The selection will be based on the quality of the paper and the presentation delivered during the workshop.
- We are committed to fostering diversity and inclusion within the robotics community. A limited number of Travel Grants are available to support student authors, with priority given to applicants from underrepresented regions or groups.
- Eligibility: Student authors of accepted papers.
- Application: Details on how to apply will be sent to authors upon paper acceptance.
Important Dates
- Paper submission deadline:
March 20, 2026Extended: April 17, 2026 11:59 p.m. (Anywhere on Earth) - Paper notification of acceptance:
April 22, 2026May 01, 2026 - Workshop date: June 1, 2026
Schedule
| Time | Speaker | Topic / Title |
|---|---|---|
| 08:50 - 09:00 | Organizers | Welcome and Workshop Overview |
| 09:00 - 09:30 | Timothy Barfoot | Everywhere and Everywhen: Progress on Long-Term Localization with Radar |
| 09:30 - 10:00 | Xieyuanli Chen | Learning Robust and Generalizable Features for Long-term Localization |
| 10:00 - 10:20 | 5 papers | Lightning Talks (3 min/pers) |
| 10:20 - 10:30 | RideScan AI | Startup Presentation (supported by IEEE RAS TABxStartups) |
| 10:30 - 11:00 | 11 papers | Coffee Break (provided by ICRA) & Poster Session A (setup) |
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Ayoung Kim | Long-Term LiDAR Localization in the Wild: From Foundation Models to Ultra-Lightweight Features |
| 11:30 - 12:00 | Marija Popović | Learning Robust Robot Perception in Unknown Environments |
| 12:00 - 12:10 | Raise Robotics | Startup Presentation (supported by IEEE RAS TABxStartups) |
| 12:10 - 14:00 | - | Lunch Break (on own) & Poster Session A (continued) |
| 14:00 - 14:30 | Teresa Vidal Calleja | Multi-robot Mapping in Maritime Environments |
| 14:30 - 15:00 | Kazunori Ohno | Tough Physical AI for Task Automation in Harsh Environments |
| 15:00 - 15:20 | 5 papers | Lightning Talks (3 min/pers) |
| 15:20 - 15:30 | ATEC (sponsor) | Competition Promotion |
| 15:30 - 16:30 | 12 papers | Coffee Break (provided by ICRA) & Poster Session B |
| 16:30 - 17:00 | All speakers | Interactive Panel Discussion |
| 17:00 - 17:30 | Organizers | Best Presentation Awards and Closing Remarks |
Lightning Talks and Poster Sessions Details
Note to presenters: All Lightning Talk papers are also required to present a physical poster during their assigned slot.
📂 Click to expand Session A (10:30-11:00 & 12:10-14:00)
📂 Click to expand Session B (15:30-16:30)
Speakers
Timothy Barfoot
University of Toronto, Canada
Xieyuanli Chen
National University of Defense Technology, China
Ayoung Kim
Seoul National University, South Korea
Marija Popović
Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Teresa Vidal Calleja
University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Kazunori Ohno
Tohoku University, Japan
Title: Seven Years in the Wild: Lessons from Agricultural Robots at Scale
Update: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Jaime Pulido Fentanes will be unable to join us.
Jaime Pulido Fentanes
Saga Robotics, Norway
Organizers
Zhi Yan
ENSTA - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France
François Goulette
ENSTA - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France
Alexandre Chapoutot
ENSTA - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France
David Filliat
AMIAD, France
Andreas Nüchter
University of Würzburg, Germany
Hi! PARIS International Visiting Chair, France
Tao Yang
Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
Martyna Poreba
Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, List, France
Fatemeh Rekabi Bana
Durham University, UK
Jindriska Deckerova
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Tomas Krajnik
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Sponsors
Contact
If you have any questions, please contact us at lowiworkshop@gmail.com.
The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.