Assistant Professor Houtan Jebelli and PhD student Yuming Wang received two honors for their work integrating robotics in the construction industry at the 2026 Construction Research Congress: the Best Paper Award in the Robotics and Automation Track, and the Overall Best Paper Award.
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At the 2026 ASCE Construction Research Congress (CRC), Assistant Professor Houtan Jebelli and PhD student Yuming Wang received two honors for their work integrating robotics in the construction industry: the Best Paper Award in the Robotics and Automation Track, and the Overall Best Paper Award.
CEE PhD student Yuming Zhang, third from right, accepts the Overall Best Paper Award at the 2026 Construction Research Congress.
The 2026 CRC took place in San Antonio, Texas the weekend of March 18, 2026. Widely considered one of the most prestigious construction engineering and management conferences, the event brought together top researchers, innovators and professionals for discussion and sharing of ideas in accordance with the 2026 theme, “Innovation through Collaboration”.
Jebelli and Zhang’s winning paper, “Assistive Autonomy and Safety Overlays for Mixed-Reality Guided Humanoid Teleoperation in Construction”, reflects that theme with its innovative approach to construction robotics.
At its core, the paper addresses critical barriers to humanoid robot deployment on construction sites. Jebelli and Zhang introduce a context-aware framework that allows robot operators to maintain control over intention in the robot’s actions, while also ensuring the commands remain within the safe and feasible limits of the robot’s capabilities. The paper also introduces uncertainty-aware perception to guide operators through different challenges and dynamic site conditions, helping them make reliable and safe decisions.
As the Overall Best Paper Award winners, Jebelli and Zhang’s work was selected from over 1,000 submissions across all research areas represented at the conference.