Plenary Speech

Hyouk Ryeol Choi is a Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea, where he has led the Robotics Laboratory since 1995. He received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University (1984), his M.S. degree from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (1986), and his Ph.D. degree from the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) (1994).

His professional career includes roles as an Associate Research Engineer at the IT Research Center, LG Electronics (1986–1989), a Postdoctoral Researcher at Kyoto University, Japan (1993–1995), a JSPS Fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan (1999–2000), and a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA (2008–2009).

Prof. Choi was elected an IEEE Fellow in 2019 for his contributions to robotic interactive sensing. He has served in numerous leadership roles within the international robotics community, including as General Chair of IEEE CASE 2012 and as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Technical Editor of IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems (Springer). He also co-founded and serves as Founding Co-Chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Robot Hand, Grasping and Manipulation.

In 2020, Prof. Choi founded AIDIN Robotics Ltd., a startup specializing in force-aware robotics and advanced force/torque sensing technologies, where he currently serves as CEO. His research focuses on Physical AI and contact-rich robotic manipulation, with particular emphasis on learning-based control strategies for dexterous manipulation in unstructured environments. His broader research interests encompass soft robotics, novel robotic mechanisms, dexterous robotic hands, grasping and manipulation, and field applications of robotic systems.

Nikhil Chopra is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, from 2006 to 2007. 

He received the Bachelor of Technology (Honors) degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India, in 2001, and the M.S. degree in General Engineering in 2003 and the Ph.D. degree in Systems and Entrepreneurial Engineering in 2006, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

His research interests include control of networked robotic systems, bilateral teleoperation, and applied nonlinear control. He is the co-author of the book Passivity-Based Control and Estimation in Networked Robotics.

Dr. Chopra is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME, 2025) and was a finalist for the Invention of the Year Award from the University of Maryland in 2025. His research group has also received several recognitions, including the Best Control Framework for Autonomous Navigation and Control Award from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion at IROS 2024, as well as a Finalist Best Student Paper Award at the Indian Control Conference 2022. He has served on several editorial boards, including as an Associate Editor for Automatica, IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, and IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

Dikai Liu is a distinguished professor at the Robotics Institute of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and an IEEE RAS Distinguished Lecturer. He is Director of the ARC Research Hub for Human-Robot Teaming for Sustainable and Resilient Construction (2024-2029). He is the General co-Chair of the 2028 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) to be held in Sydney in October 2028. He served as Co-Director of the UTS Centre for Autonomous Systems (2013-2019) and played the key role in establishing the UTS Robotics Institute in 2019.

His research interest lies in robotics, with a focus on field robotics and human-robot collaboration. In addition to conducting fundamental robotics research, he has been instrumental in transforming robotics research into industry applications. Examples include autonomous robots for bridge maintenance, bio-inspired climbing robots for inspection of confined space, intelligent robotic co-worker for human-robot collaborative abrasive blasting, smart hoist for patient transfer, and autonomous underwater robots for underwater structure maintenance.

Since 2006, his research has received over 20 Best Paper and Research/Engineering Excellence awards, including the 2024 IEEE IROS Harashima Award, the 2019 UTS Medal for Research Impact, the 2019 ASME DED Leonardo da Vinci Award, the 2019 BHERT Award for Outstanding Collaboration in Research & Development, and the 2016 Australian Engineering Excellence Awards (AEEA). His research has been featured by reputable newspapers and TV news channels, such as the BBC, ABC, SBS, TVBS (Taiwan), Sydney Morning Herald, 7News, and The Robot Report (USA).