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The RoCo Challenge 2026 — a global robotics competition focused on collaborative robot assembly for human-centric manufacturing — took place as part of the AAAI 2026 Conference. The challenge pushed teams to develop adaptive robotic systems capable of completing manufacturing tasks together with human-like conditions, including starting assembly from scratch, resuming from a partially completed state, and detecting and recovering from errors in assembly workflows.

The event included an online competition phase from November 2025 to January 2026, followed by real-robot onsite finals on 24–25 January 2026 where teams tested their solutions on physical systems under live evaluation.

A*STAR ARTC played a key support role in enabling the success of this event. During the onsite finals at AAAI, ARTC provided venue support and logistical coordination, helping to ensure smooth operations for teams and observers alike. Our contribution helped bring together researchers, engineers, and industry practitioners to showcase cutting-edge robotic collaboration technologies and advance research toward real-world manufacturing applications.

The RoCo Challenge highlighted the growing importance of robust robot collaboration, error-aware autonomy, and adaptive manufacturing systems — areas closely aligned with ARTC’s mission to accelerate practical robotics solutions for industry.

Watch the livestream here.