ULTRA Framework Nominated for IROS 2026 Best Mobile Manipulation Paper

The Unified Multimodal Control for Autonomous Humanoid Whole-Body Loco-Manipulation (ULTRA) framework has been accepted to IROS 2026 and selected as a candidate for the conference's Mobile Manipulation Paper Award. Validated on the Unitree G1 humanoid robot, ULTRA addresses a key challenge in humanoid robotics: enabling versatile whole-body manipulation and locomotion. The research will be presented at the conference.

The framework's core innovation is its dual-mode controller. The same controller can either track frame-by-frame reference motions—useful for tasks with pre-defined trajectories—or, when no reference motion is available, generate whole-body actions solely from a target position and sensory perception. This eliminates the need for separate controllers for different tasks, simplifying the control architecture. This unification enhances adaptability and reduces computational overhead.

By relying only on goal positions and perception, ULTRA enables autonomous operation in unstructured environments. This could allow humanoid robots to perform complex loco-manipulation tasks, such as moving boxes, without explicit motion planning. The framework's acceptance at IROS 2026 highlights its potential impact on mobile manipulation research, and its ability to switch seamlessly between modes could bring humanoid robots closer to practical deployment in logistics, manufacturing, and service industries. ULTRA represents a step toward more autonomous humanoid robots.