17 of the 61 Robotics and Intelligent Machines projects at ISEF 2026 won a Grand Award. Here's every one, with its abstract.
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines First Award
Wetland ecosystems play critical roles in maintaining biodiversity, regulating hydrological processes, and supporting carbon sequestration—functions that align closely with United Nations Su…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines First Award
Hyperspectral imaging enables simultaneous acquisition of spatial and spectral information and has become indispensable in applications including material characterization, environmental eng…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Second Award
Microplastics have a devastating effect on global ecosystems, however, conventional monitoring methods are expensive, inefficient, and cumbersome requiring week-long laboratory analyses, whi…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Second Award
Most robotic grippers are either powerful or gentle, rarely both. Traditional rigid designs lack adaptability and often damage fragile objects through excessive force, limiting their usage i…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Second Award
Globally, tens of millions of people suffer from lower body impairments, including spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, stroke, and muscular dystrophies, leading to loss of independent mobi…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Third Award
Large language models (LLMs) achieve remarkable performance on complex reasoning tasks, yet they fail unpredictably and with high confidence on seemingly simple problems, posing a critical c…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Third Award
In fields such as exploration or inspection in hazardous environments, the ability to navigate terrain safely is crucial. This is often done through robotics; however, traditional systems (r…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Third Award
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly trusted in domains such as education, research, and decision making. Despite their widespread adoption, fundamental questions remain about align…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Third Award
Autonomous drone research has become increasingly important, yet there are many burdens which make its access limited. Especially for autonomous drone racing, high-end motion-capture systems…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Third Award
Globally, 43 million blind and 295 million visually impaired individuals lack independent indoor mobility. Existing aids are either reactive (white canes), expensive (guide dogs), or ineffec…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Fourth Award
The $191.3 billion U.S. infrastructure repair backlog and unreliability of traditional manual visual inspections, which miss up to 94% of cracks, demonstrates the urgent need for improved in…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Fourth Award
By 2052, one quarter of the population will be over the age of 65, with adults over 85 the fastest growing segment. Supporting older adults to maintain their independence is a global priorit…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Fourth Award
Clutch is a hybrid electrostatic dry adhesive climbing robot, and is a culmination of a research and development project. For the past few decades, researchers have been trying to replicate…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Fourth Award
3D point clouds are fundamental to robot perception and 3D reconstruction. However, due to interference, they often contain outliers which distort surface geometry and degrade the performanc…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Fourth Award
Hundreds of U.S. workers are killed annually performing inspections in confined spaces, industrial facilities, and critical infrastructure, with thousands more suffering severe injuries (Bur…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Fourth Award
Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) remains absent from AI research despite serving 600,000 Deaf Kenyans. Existing recognition systems, including those for ASL and BSL, fail under real-world conditio…
ISEF · 2026
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Fourth Award
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence tools, society has seen a significant increase in their applications in high-stakes, sensitive industries. However, these tools often operate with op…