NUS Computing Robotics Research Shortlisted for ICRA 2026 Best Paper Award

A research paper by Assistant Professor Lin Shao and collaborators has been selected as a finalist for the ICRA 2026 Best Paper Award, one of the highest honours at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

The paper, Bi-Adapt: Few-shot Bimanual Adaptation for Novel Categories of 3D Objects via Semantic Correspondence, addresses a key challenge in robotics: scaling bimanual manipulation skills without relying on expensive human teleoperation data.

The framework learns transferable bimanual affordance representations that are inferred from diverse data sources –online videos, images, foundation models, and robot demonstrations – then adapts these representations across different robot embodiments. The result is a robot that can acquire complex two-handed manipulation skills to a wide range of objects and tasks it has not encountered before.

Bi-Adapt has been tested on a demanding set of real-world scenarios, from handling articulated objects and opening containers to tool use and other dexterous interactions. The work provides a practical pathway towards general-purpose robotic assistants in homes, warehouses, and manufacturing environments.

"We are honoured that Bi-Adapt has been selected as a finalist for the ICRA Best Paper Award. This recognition highlights the importance of developing scalable learning frameworks that enable robots to acquire complex bimanual manipulation skills from diverse sources of experience,” said Assistant Professor Lin Shao. “By allowing robots to learn and transfer skills at scale, Bi-Adapt brings us one step closer to general-purpose robotic intelligence."

Project website: https://biadapt-project.github.io/