On Monday, GRASP Lab members will be presenting their STAR-Filter paper at WAFR 2026. Read the GRASP Blog Post by co-author Yuwei Wu for more information on the publication! grasp.upenn.edu/news/geometr… #GRASP #GRASPLab #WAFR2026

GRASP's Figueroa Lab has created Flow with the Force Field, a framework that generates data from a single human demonstration that can be transferred to real-life robotic tasks. More info: flow-with-the-force-field.gi… Video: youtube.com/watch?v=5pOrTL7Q… #GRASP #GRASPLab #FigueroaLab

GRASP's Modlab is developing a steerable needle that can be steered both manually and autonomously, injecting medication directly into the affected tissue. See the link below for more info! modlabupenn.org/steerable-ta… #GRASP #GRASPLab #Modlab #SteerableNeedle

😋From WAM to WPAM: World-Action Models should NOT stop at pixels! We release PointAction, lifting World Models from RGB to RGB XYZ and using dynamic pointmaps as universal action representations for robot control. Page: oriontmt.github.io/pointacti… Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2606.03943 🧐Q: Why not pixels only? Pixels tell us what changes, but not always how a robot should move in 3D. Learning this mapping from RGB alone often requires massive paired action data, while raw motor commands are embodiment-specific and less transferable across robots. Our intuition: World-Action Models should model the physical world in the same space where actions take effect — and that space is 3D. Instead of predicting raw motor commands directly from video, PointAction uses 3D point dynamics as a richer and more robust bridge 🌉: - they make metric motion, spatial constraints, and contact-relevant geometry explicit; - they are less tied to a specific robot’s motors; - they can be extracted from much broader robot video data. PointAction first learns a general diffusion-based 4D world-action backbone in RGB XYZ space, predicting robot-centric 3D point dynamics, then decodes them into embodiment-specific controls with lightweight action heads. --- This project is led by @TongMutianTMT (incoming PhD student at @PennCIS @GRASPlab), and @hanjiang00 (talented undergrad who visited my lab last year). Huge congrats to all coauthors @WindStyle1459 and @LingjieLiu1! 🎉

ICRA isn't the only conference GRASP is attending this week. We are also at CVPR 2026!!! Read this article to see what the GRASP Lab is up to at CVPR! grasp.upenn.edu/news/grasp-l… #GRASP #GRASPLab #CVPR2026

CONGRATULATIONS to our GRASP Lab members on receiving BOTH the ICRA 2026 Best Paper Award on Planning and Control AND the Best Conference Paper Award!!! #GRASP #GRASPLab #ICRA2026 #BestPaper

Tomorrow afternoon, GRASP Lab members will be presenting Symskill at ICRA 2026 as a finalist for the Best Paper Award on Planning and Control! sites.google.com/view/symski… #GRASP #GRASPLab #BestPaperAward #ICRA2026

🏆 A record $50,000 in prizes @MICCAI_Society The ORena SAVE FOCUS Challenge is one of MICCAI's 2026 lighthouse challenges Can #AI track foreign objects across an *entire* operation to prevent retained foreign objects? #MICCAI2026 #SurgicalAI #MedicalImaging #AIforHealth

Tomorrow, GRASP's DAIR Lab will be presenting Push Anything at ICRA 2026 as a finalist for the Best Paper Award on Robot Manipulation and Locomotion! dairlab.github.io/push-anyth… #GRASP #GRASPLab #DAIR #DAIRLab

Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna joins Vijay Kumar in episode 12 of Penn Engineering’s Innovation & Impact podcast to discuss electric vehicles, innovation leadership and balancing new technologies with Ferrari’s legacy of performance and design.

Going to ICRA 2026? Click here to see where GRASP Lab Members will be on each day of the conference: grasp.upenn.edu/news/grasp-l… #GRASP #GRASPLab #GRASPatICRA #ICRA2026

Perception, Action, and Learning (PennPAL) Group researchers developed ZeroMimic, which uses human POV videos to enable zero-shot control across robots in diverse real-world/simulated environments. Video: youtube.com/watch?v=nFhNSsR7… Project Page: zeromimic.github.io/ #GRASPLab

Check out this video project on "Distilling On-device Language Models for Robot Planning with Minimal Human Intervention" from Kumar Lab! Video: youtu.be/brlBn6-hEpo Project page: zacravichandran.github.io/PR… #GRASP #GRASPLab #GRASPProjects

Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna joins Vijay Kumar on the Penn Engineering podcast to discuss his journey from physicist and semiconductor innovator to leading one of the world’s most iconic automotive brands. The conversation explores Ferrari’s evolving approach to electrification, digital transformation and high-performance engineering, as well as the importance of pairing deep technical expertise with long-term vision. youtu.be/XOijfgbLDS0 @PennEngAI

Check out this article highlighting the exemplary GRASP Lab students recognized by Penn and the Robotics Industry during the 2025-2026 academic year! grasp.upenn.edu/news/grasp-2… #GRASP #GRASPLab #GRASPAwards

Did you know that you can find the GRASP SFI Spring 2026 seminars on the GRASP YouTube Channel? Check out the playlist HERE! youtube.com/playlist?list=PL… #GRASP #GRASPLab #GRASPSFI

Did you miss our GRASP on Robotics 2026 Spring Seminar Series? You can find them in the link below or on our GRASP YouTube page! youtube.com/playlist?list=PL… #GRASP #GRASPLab #GRASPYoutube #GRASPSeminars

UGVs have been successfully deployed in both academia and industry. Interested? Check out the full project "Risk-Aware MPC Planning for Unmanned Ground Vehicles" from GRASP's Vijay Kumar Lab below! youtu.be/dU5Egdby3kw Project Page: frankgon1627.github.io/risk_… #GRASP #GRASPLab

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the May 2026 ROBOTICS MSE Thesis & Capstone Lightning Talks we recently posted! youtu.be/ysPYX5aDuu8 More info: grasp.upenn.edu/events/sprin… #GRASP #GRASPLab #GRASPLightningTalks

Congratulations to Penn Engineering's Class of 2026! In her speech, student speaker Julia Fremberg (ENG’26) drew a parallel between Penn’s interconnected buildings and the vital bonds between students. "As you move from place to place, from goal to goal, never forget to cherish those in-between moments. The E-Quad tunnels were never just about getting somewhere faster. They were about who you found—and who you became—along the way." #PennEngineeringProud #PennGrad