Special sessions are very small and specialized events to be held during the conference as a set of oral and poster presentations that are highly specialized in some particular theme or consisting of the works of some particular international project. The goal of special sessions (minimum 4 papers; maximum 9) is to provide a focused discussion on innovative topics. All accepted papers will be published in a special section of the conference proceedings book, under an ISBN reference, and on digital support. All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library. SCITEPRESS is a member of CrossRef and every paper is given a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). The proceedings are submitted for indexation by SCOPUS, Google Scholar, DBLP, Semantic Scholar, EI and Web of Science / Conference Proceedings Citation Index.
SYMPOSIA/SPECIAL SESSIONS LIST
HybAI 2026, Special Session on Hybrid Intelligence: Integrating Physics-Based Principles with Data-Driven AI
Chair(s): Vittorio Lippi, Ndivhuwo Makondo and Leonard Johard
SAS 2026, Special Session on Secure Autonomy at Scale: Intelligent Control and Coordination of Multi Agent Systems
Chair(s): Boumedyen Boussaid
COBOTA 2026, Special Session on Bridging the Gap in COllaborative roBOtics: from Theory to real Applications
Chair(s): Juan Corrales, Chedli Bouzgarrou, Pedro Dinis Gaspar and Daniel Sanchez Martínez
IADTT-IS 2026, Special Session on Intelligent Automation & Digital Twin Technologies for Industrial Systems.
Chair(s): Avadh Nagaralawala
Special Session on Hybrid Intelligence: Integrating Physics-Based Principles with Data-Driven AI -
HybAI
2026
Paper Submission:
July 31, 2026
Authors Notification:
September 9, 2026
Camera Ready and Registration:
September 18, 2026
Scope
This special session focuses on the intersection of physical sciences, control engineering, and artificial intelligence. The scope encompasses the development, analysis, and application of gray-box modeling, approaches that strategically combine physical laws, domain knowledge, and first principles with the flexibility of modern data-driven AI. The session aims to bring together researchers and practitioners developing methods that are both intelligent and accountable, targeting safety-critical, data-scarce, or highly complex domains (such as industrial automation, healthcare, scientific discovery, and robotics) where purely black-box models are insufficient, and purely white-box models fail to scale.
Special Session on Secure Autonomy at Scale: Intelligent Control and Coordination of Multi Agent Systems -
SAS
2026
Paper Submission:
July 31, 2026
Authors Notification:
September 9, 2026
Camera Ready and Registration:
September 18, 2026
Scope
This special session aims to bring together researchers, engineers, and practitioners working on secure, intelligent, and cooperative multi agent systems. With the growing deployment of networked robots, autonomous vehicles, distributed sensors, and cyber physical infrastructures, new challenges arise regarding coordinated control, resilience to cyber threats, and robust decision making in complex environments.
The session welcomes contributions that advance theoretical foundations, algorithmic innovations, and practical applications related to consensus, distributed control, cybersecurity, and intelligent coordination of autonomous agents. Emphasis is placed on cross disciplinary approaches that integrate control theory, AI, robotics, communication networks, and cyber defense strategies to ensure safe, resilient, and trustworthy multi agent operations.
Special Session on Bridging the Gap in COllaborative roBOtics: from Theory to real Applications -
COBOTA
2026
Paper Submission:
July 31, 2026
Authors Notification:
September 9, 2026
Camera Ready and Registration:
September 18, 2026
Scope
This special session aims to explore innovative approaches for enhancing the capabilities of collaborative robots (cobots), enabling their effective deployment in intricate and unpredictable real-world scenarios. We seek contributions that move beyond theoretical discussions to present practical solutions for integrating cobots into diverse settings, particularly within healthcare, homecare and industrial workplaces where plenty of human manual work is required (such as SMEs).
The organizers collaborate with this aim through the ROBOTA-SUDOE project by proposing four main innovations: self-sensing soft grippers for delicate manipulation, multi-modal perception with sensorized tools for human-robot interaction, learning from human demonstrations for complex tasks, and force control strategies for human assistance in demanding tasks. Other additional proposals are encoraged to be presented for extending cobots’ autonomy.
Special Session on Intelligent Automation & Digital Twin Technologies for Industrial Systems. -
IADTT-IS
2026
Paper Submission:
July 31, 2026
Authors Notification:
September 9, 2026
Camera Ready and Registration:
September 18, 2026
Scope
This special session explores advanced automation and digital-twin strategies in large-scale industrial systems, including PLC/SCADA integration, condition-monitoring, vibration analytics, industrial IoT architectures and data-driven optimization of heavy-equipment operations.