ROSCon UK 2026
Edinburgh
21-23 October
ROSCon UK 2026
Thank you to everyone who joined us and made ROSCon UK 2026 such a special event!
ROSCon UK 2026 is now over! The conference took place in Edinburgh from 21-23 October, 2026 at the Pollock Estate Complex.
We’re delighted to have welcomed 235 attendees, representing 67+ companies, and 22+ universities. We had another 100+ people join us for our brand new community builder event, where we welcomed the people of Edinburgh into the exhibition hall.
We had 52 contributions including 2 keynotes, 9 workshops, 11 deep-dives, 10 talks, and 20 lightning talks. There were 18 sponsors including 14 exhibitors, and a team of 32 volunteers.
The conference was a chance for ROS developers of all levels to spend an extraordinary 3 days learning from and networking with the ROS community of the UK and beyond. As a developers conference, the programme comprised a mixture of networking and social events, workshops, technical talks, and tutorials. We were delighted to see so many great conversations happening and connections being forged.
We’ll have recordings from the sessions, and photos from the event up soon - stay tuned!
ROSCon UK 2027
Big news!
ROSCon UK 2027 will be held in Bristol from 5-7 July 2027 at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory
There will be lots more info to come - to make sure you don’t miss out, sign up to the ROSCon UK 2027 mailing list to get updates as soon as we have them:
We always aim for ROSCon UK to represent the entire ROS community in the UK. Whoever you are, whatever you do, and wherever you do it, if you are interested in ROS, then we want you to join us at ROSCon UK. We encourage women, members of minority groups, and members of other under-represented groups to attend ROSCon UK. We expect all attendees to follow our code of conduct.
If you have questions, concerns, or ideas for ROSCon UK, please contact the executive committee.
We also welcome suggestions for what else we can do to encourage more participation. Contact us if you have ideas that you would like to share.
Robots are cool, but our logo is designed by a real human.
Art @ Petronella Tizedes
Sponsors
Sponsors
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Brought to you by
ROSCon UK 2026 is organised by the Tartan Robotics Collective, in conjunction with the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF).
Attend
ROSCon UK Registration
Registration for ROSCon UK 2026 is now closed
For any registration queries, please contact info@roscon.org.uk.
Location
Venue
ROSCon UK 2026 is held in Edinburgh, a city renowned for its beauty, history, and technology.
Edinburgh is a popular destination for conferences, and the dates for ROSCon UK 2026 are likely to be favourable to attendees who are keen to take in all the city has to offer.
Edinburgh is an accessible, modern city, boasting an airport, train station, and bus station. Travellers can take advantage of the efficient and reliable bus and tram system for travel throughout the city.
ROSCon UK 2026 is to be hosted at the Pollock Estate Complex of the University of Edinburgh, a renowned institution consistently ranked amongst the top in the world.
The Pollock Estate Complex (map) is located in the vibrant Southside of Edinburgh and nestled on the edge of Holyrood Park - a city space unlike any other with dramatic hills and crags shaping Edinburgh’s iconic skyline.
The beautiful Playfair Library at the University of Edinburgh’s Old College will be the Gala Dinner venue for attendees to dine and network.
Travel to Edinburgh
Edinburgh is well-connected to the rest of the UK through two main transportation hubs:
🚆 By Train - Edinburgh Waverley Station Edinburgh Waverley Station is the main railway station, located in the heart of the city center. It provides excellent connections throughout the UK.
Key rail connections:
- From London: Direct services via East Coast Main Line (4.5 hours)
- From Manchester: Direct services (3.5 hours)
- From Birmingham: Direct services (4.5 hours)
- From Bristol: Via Birmingham (6 hours)
- From Glasgow: Frequent services (1 hour)
- From Newcastle: Direct services (1.5 hours)
The station is centrally located for easy access to the venue (approx 20 mins by public transport or 30 mins walking) and accommodations. If you’re travelling from Waverley Station then Google Maps may send you via the unique Scotsman Steps - if you prefer fewer stairs then take the Princes Street or Waverley Bridge exits instead - the latter giving a lovely view of the town as you exit the station.
✈️ By Air - Edinburgh Airport (EDI) Edinburgh Airport is Scotland’s busiest airport, located 13km west of the city center. It offers direct flights from major UK cities as well as European ones.
Transportation from Edinburgh Airport:
- Airlink 100 Bus
- Time: 30-35 minutes to city center
- Cost: £4.50 single, £7.50 return
- Runs every 10 minutes during peak hours
- Direct service to Waverley Bridge (city center)
- Tram
- Time: 35 minutes to city center
- Cost: £6.50 single, £9.50 return
- Runs every 8-12 minutes
- Direct service to Princes Street
- Taxi or Private Car
- Ride sharing apps include Uber and local taxis
- Time: 25-30 minutes
- Cost: £25-35
Hotel Information
UoE Collection Accommodation
ROSCon UK 2026 has partnered up with the UoE Collection and is happy to offer on-site accommodation options on the Pollock Estate at a discount for the duration of the conference. A promo code will be provided in your welcome e-mail shortly after you register for ROSCon
Booking link: book.accom.ed.ac.uk
- The Scott on site, next to the venue
- The Scholar on site, next to The Scott
Additional Accommodation Options
For alternative accommodation, you can also search on Booking.com and Airbnb for additional options in Edinburgh.
Programme
Conference App
We’re using whova as the conference app this year. It’s got the full programme, venue maps, and it’s where we’ll be co-ordinating session Q&As, meetups, making conference announcments and more
Get the ROSCon UK 2026 Whova App
Programme at a Glance
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
DAY 0 [Wednesday, 21/10/26] | DAY 1 (Workshop Day) [Thursday, 22/10/26] | DAY 2 (Main Day) [Friday, 23/10/26] | ||||||||||||
|
2
|
8:30 am |
Tea&Coffee
+
Registration (South Hall - Kirkland) |
Tea&Coffee
Breakfast +
Registration JMCC Foyer |
EXHIBITION @ SOUTH HALL |
Tea&Coffee
Breakfast +
Registration JMCC Foyer |
EXHIBITION @ SOUTH HALL | 8:30 am | ||||||||
|
3
|
8:45 am | 8:45 am | |||||||||||||
|
4
|
9:00 am | 9:00 am | |||||||||||||
|
5
|
9:15 am | Group 1 | Group 2 | Birds of a Feather | 9:15 am | ||||||||||
|
6
|
9:30 am | Shuttle bus | Workshops - Morning @ JMCC |
Deep-dive
(Holyrood) Plans for Physical AI |
Deep-dive
(Duddingston)
LidarView |
Conference Welcome @ JMCC Pentland | 9:30 am | ||||||||
|
7
|
9:45 am | Shuttle bus |
ROS 101 Crash Course (Marquee + Salisbury) |
Open Source Robot Arm Tool (Prestonfield) |
2nd ROSCon UK Education Workshop (Pentland East) |
UniTac:Tactile Sensing & Cross-Sensor Learning (Pentland West) |
Keynote: Lars Grimstad - Saga Robotics | 9:45 am | |||||||
|
8
|
10:00 am |
Tours & Demos
at Informatics |
10:00 am | ||||||||||||
|
9
|
10:15 am |
Tours & Demos
at National Robotarium |
Deep-dive
(Holyrood) cuVSLAM and Nav2 |
Deep-dive
(Duddingston)
VSLAM on a Low-Cost Rover |
10:15 am | ||||||||||
|
10
|
10:30 am |
Lightning talks 1
10 Presentations of 2 minutes each |
10:30 am | ||||||||||||
|
11
|
10:45 am | 10:45 am | |||||||||||||
|
12
|
11:00 am |
Tea&Coffee
Morning Break @ JMCC Centro |
Tea&Coffee
Morning Break @ JMCC Centro |
11:00 am | |||||||||||
|
13
|
11:15 am | 11:15 am | |||||||||||||
|
14
|
11:30 am |
ROS 101 Crash Course (Marquee + Salisbury) |
Open Source Robot Arm Tool (Prestonfield) |
2nd ROSCon UK Education Workshop (Pentland East) |
UniTac:Tactile Sensing & Cross-Sensor Learning (Pentland West) |
Deep-dive
(Holyrood)
Humanoid Teleoperation |
Deep-dive
(Duddingston) How a Robot Moves: Tracing Assumptions |
A map for machines | 11:30 am | ||||||
|
15
|
11:45 am | Shuttle bus | Starting with ROS in 2026: Robotics in the age of AI | 11:45 am | |||||||||||
|
16
|
12:00 pm | Shuttle bus | From Prototype to Production: How ROS Accelerates Robotics Development | 12:00 pm | |||||||||||
|
17
|
12:15 pm |
Deep-dive
(Holyrood)
Unpacking Simulation Solvers |
Deep-dive
(Duddingston) Serial bus servos |
From Bark to Byte: Auto-Shepherd Infrastructure for Precision Herding | 12:15 pm | ||||||||||
|
18
|
12:30 pm |
Lunch @ JMCC Restaurant |
A VR Teleoperated Inspection Platform for Nuclear Applications | 12:30 pm | |||||||||||
|
19
|
12:45 pm | Quick refresh and walk to South Hall (Group Photo) | 12:45 pm | ||||||||||||
|
20
|
1:00 pm |
Lunch
@ South Hall Exhibition Centre |
Lunch
@ South Hall Exhibition Centre |
1:00 pm | |||||||||||
|
21
|
1:15 pm | 1:15 pm | |||||||||||||
|
22
|
1:30 pm | 1:30 pm | |||||||||||||
|
23
|
1:45 pm | Group 1 | Group 2 | Birds of a Feather | 1:45 pm | ||||||||||
|
24
|
2:00 pm | Shuttle bus | 2:00 pm | ||||||||||||
|
25
|
2:15 pm | Shuttle bus | 2:15 pm | ||||||||||||
|
26
|
2:30 pm |
Tours & Demos
at Informatics |
Workshops - Afternoon @ JMCC |
Deep-dive
(Duddingston) Ship robots w/o hand-crafted images |
Keynote: Adam Norton - NERVE Adventures in Reproducing, Integrating, and Benchmarking Open-Source for Robot Grasping and Manipulation |
2:30 pm | |||||||||
|
27
|
2:45 pm |
Tours & Demos
at National Robotarium |
micro-ROS from Zero: Hands-On with ESP32 (Salisbury) |
ROS on the Rocks! (Prestonfield) |
ROS in the Field: Agri-Food (Pentland East) |
FIC Studio: Impedance Control for Multi-Robot Manipulation (Pentland West) |
Underwater Robotics with Stonefish (Holyrood) |
2:45 pm | |||||||
|
28
|
3:00 pm | 3:00 pm | |||||||||||||
|
29
|
3:15 pm |
Deep-dive
(Duddingston) Arduino’s new robotics ecosystem |
ros_universal_cmake: a unified CMake syntax for building ROS packages | 3:15 pm | |||||||||||
|
30
|
3:30 pm | Where Your ROS Messages Get Copied: Reducing Communication Overhead | 3:30 pm | ||||||||||||
|
31
|
3:45 pm | Making Metaheuristics ROS-Ready for Autonomous Planning | 3:45 pm | ||||||||||||
|
32
|
4:00 pm |
Tea&Coffee
Afternoon Break @ JMCC Centro |
Tea&Coffee
Afternoon Break @ JMCC Centro |
4:00 pm | |||||||||||
|
33
|
4:15 pm | Shuttle bus | 4:15 pm | ||||||||||||
|
34
|
4:30 pm | Shuttle bus |
micro-ROS from Zero: Hands-On with ESP32 (Salisbury) |
ROS on the Rocks! (Prestonfield) |
ROS in the Field: Agri-Food (Pentland East) |
FIC Studio: Impedance Control for Multi-Robot Manipulation (Pentland West) |
Underwater Robotics with Stonefish (Holyrood) |
Deep-dive
(Duddingston)
cppyy_kit |
ros2_control goes Industrial Automation | 4:30 pm | |||||
|
35
|
4:45 pm | Coupling ros2_control to CANopen SYNC for hardware-accurate timestamps | 4:45 pm | ||||||||||||
|
36
|
5:00 pm | Chill & Refresh | ROS 2 roboreg: marker-free hand-eye calibration | 5:00 pm | |||||||||||
|
37
|
5:15 pm |
Drinks Reception and Conference Welcome @ South Hall Exhibition Centre |
EXHIBITION |
ROSCon UK Community Builder (South Hall) |
Lightning talks 2
10 Presentations of 2 minutes each |
5:15 pm | |||||||||
|
38
|
5:30 pm | 5:30 pm | |||||||||||||
|
39
|
5:45 pm | Closing Remarks | 5:45 pm | ||||||||||||
|
40
|
6:00 pm | Refresh & Bus [10min] to Gala Dinner (Playfair Library) | Quick refresh and walk to South Hall | 6:00 pm | |||||||||||
|
41
|
6:15 pm |
Farewell Drinks @ South Hall Exhibition Centre |
6:15 pm | ||||||||||||
|
42
|
6:30 pm | 6:30 pm | |||||||||||||
|
43
|
6:45 pm | 6:45 pm | |||||||||||||
|
44
|
7:00 pm | Gala Dinner @ The Playfair Library | 7:00 pm | ||||||||||||
|
45
|
Till Late | Till Late | |||||||||||||
|
46
|
|||||||||||||||
|
47
|
|||||||||||||||
Detailed Programme
Organisation
Organising Committee
General Chair
Dr. Bence Magyar
Principal Software Engineer - Locus Robotics,Member - Tartan Robotics Collective
Programme Committee
Prof. Marc Hanheide
Programme Chair,Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems - University of Lincoln
Dr. Hugo Sardinha
Publicity Chair,Senior Software Engineer - Launchpad Build
Mikel Bueno Viso
Research Assistant in Intelligent Automation -Cranfield University
Dr. Jelizaveta Konstantinova
Lead Research Engineering Manager -Ocado Group
Organising Committee Members
Dr. Alejandro Bordallo
Senior Robotics Engineer & Scientist - University of Edinburgh,Member - Tartan Robotics Collective
Dr. Ingo Keller
Head of Robotics - The National Robotarium,Member - Tartan Robotics Collective
Tom Moore
VP of Robotics Software - Locus Robotics,Member - Tartan Robotics Collective
Dr. Vladimir Ivan
VP of Robotics - Touchlab,Member - Tartan Robotics Collective
Heramb Modugula
PhD Student - University of Edinburgh
Dr. Emanuele De Pellegrin
Research Associate - Roboticist,Centre for AI in Assistive Autonomy
Dr. Sandy Enoch
Founder - RoboticalCode of Conduct
All attendees, speakers, sponsors and volunteers at our conference are required to accept the following code of conduct. Organisers will enforce this code throughout the event. We expect cooperation from all participants to help ensure a safe environment for everybody.
The Quick Version
Our conference is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks, workshops, parties, Twitter and other online media. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organisers.
The Less Quick Version
Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion, technology choices, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.
Participants asked to stop any harassing behaviour are expected to comply immediately.
Sponsors are also subject to the anti-harassment policy. In particular, sponsors should not use sexualised images, activities, or other material. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualised clothing/uniforms/costumes, or otherwise create a sexualised environment.
If a participant engages in harassing behaviour, the conference organisers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund.
If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff immediately. Conference staff can be identified as they’ll be wearing badges as well as there will be staff at the registration desk.
Conference staff will be happy to help participants contact hotel/venue security or local law enforcement, provide escorts, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the conference. We value your attendance.
We expect participants to follow these rules at conference and workshop venues and conference-related social events.
If you’d like to know how your data will be processed when you register for ROSCon UK, check out our Event Privacy Statement
Archive
Past ROSCon events
Even though this is the very second ROSCon UK, ROSCon is not a new conference. There has been an international ROSCon held annually since 2012.
If you’d like to know more we have archives of all the past programmes with recordings of the talks and most of the slides. The sites can be found at the locations below.
- ROSCon 2024, Odense, Denmark
- ROSCon 2023, New Orleans, USA
- ROSCon 2022 Kyoto, Japan
- ROS World 2021, Virtual
- ROS World 2020, Virtual
- ROSCon 2019 Macau
- ROSCon 2018 Madrid, Spain
- ROSCon 2017 Vancouver, Canada
- ROSCon 2016 Seoul, Korea
- ROSCon 2015 Hamburg, Germany
- ROSCon 2014 Chicago, USA
- ROSCon 2013 Stuttgart, Germany
- ROSCon 2012 St. Paul, USA
