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ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas 2026 Annual Meeting

  • McCormick Place 2301 South Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Drive Chicago, IL, 60616 United States (map)

The ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas will host its annual meeting in conjunction with the Automate 2026 show in Chicago. The annual Members' Meeting is a chance to understand the latest developments relative to ROS-Industrial, both within the Americas and around the world. There will be a chance to engage on the strategy for how ROS-I capability is shaped, in particular with the latest developments around ROS 2, and the latest success stories and resources to enable your team to get the most out of ROS 2.

This is always a great opportunity to engage with other interested end-users, OEMs, solution providers and researchers on open source, interoperable, agile software capabilities. The collaborations that emerge through these interactions have led to significant accomplishments, of which you will learn about at this gathering. We look forward to seeing everyone in Chicago!

 

When: June 25, 2026 (The last full day of Automate 2026)

Location: Co-located with Automate within McCormick Place. Room N427ABC.

Pre-meeting Dinner: A networking dinner will be held the evening of June 24 from 6:00-8:00 PM at 90th Meridian, 231 S LaSalle St #108, Chicago, IL 60604. It's just a short walk from McCormick Place, and dinner is included with your registration.

Host: Jerry Towler, RIC-Americas Program Director

Registration: Register Here!

Morning Program

Time Session Speaker(s) & Affiliation
08:15 Light Breakfast, Check In
08:45 Welcome and ROS-I Americas State of the Consortium & Tech Update Jerry Towler
RIC-Americas Program Director
09:10 ROS-I European Union – ROS-I and EU Initiatives Vishnu Prachandabhanu
ROS-I EU Program Manager
Fraunhofer IPA
09:35 ROS-I Asia-Pacific – Scaling Robotics in Manufacturing and What's Next for ROS-I AP Chang Tat
ROS-I AP Technical Group Manager
ARTC
10:00 Break
10:20 What's New in ROS 2: Lyrical, Growth Metrics, Challenges, and Success Stories Kat Scott
Developer Relations
Intrinsic
10:45 VLAs and VLMs with ROS and MoveIt Pro Dave Coleman
Founder/Chief Product Officer
PickNik
11:10 FTP Proposal(s) Tully Foote
Intrinsic
(Currently holding space for others to “pitch” collaboration projects)
11:35 Lunch
Keynote: Automation opportunities in automotive manufacturing and the role of open-source Parag Patre
Senior Manager for Advance Robotics
Magna

Afternoon Program

Time Session Speaker(s) & Affiliation
12:45 Workshops (Tentative)
ROS-I Roadmap Gaps and User Experience
Working session based on recent survey of industrial member challenges with ROS 2 		Matt Robinson
Documentation Review
Pros and cons of latest examples
Updated documentation and example pages
What is working/what isn’t 		Michael Ripperger
Collaboration Opportunities
Other FTP ideas? Small groups discussing where they would like to work together 		Paul Evans
Executive Director
Southwest Research Institute
14:15 Summary of Workshop Outputs
14:30 Break
14:45 Journey and Lessons Learned Building Solutions with ROS 2 Makarand Madolkar, Robotics Engineer 2
Nardos Ashenafi, Software Engineer 3
Toyota Automated Logistics
15:10 Accelerating the development and deployment of Industrial Robotics using ROS and QNX RTOS Nikhil Rai
Senior Global Product Marketing Manager
QNX
15:35 Break
15:50 Robot Raconteur: An Interoperable Middleware for Robotics John Wason
Owner
Wason Technology, LLC
16:15 Physical AI at the ARM Institute Matthew Powelson
Robotics & AI Engineer
ARM Institute
16:40 Closing Remarks
16:50 Adjourn

ROS-Industrial Consortium Members Exhibiting at Automate

Per ROS-I Annual Meeting tradition when co-located at Automate - members exhibiting at Automate will be featured here. The official list for Automate exhibitors may be found here: https://www.automateshow.com/exhibitors

Earlier Event: June 23
ROS Meetup @ Automate Chicago
Later Event: July 14
ROS-Industrial Training (Americas) July 2026