XR for Challenging Environments

Motivation

Extended Reality (XR) combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize how professionals operate in Challenging Environments (CEs), ranging from emergency response and firefighting to advanced industrial manufacturing. These are contexts defined by a confluence of complexity, risk, and unpredictability that pushes human decision-making to its limits.

However, current research often fails to address the unique demands of embodied, mission-critical work. When stakes are high, operational XR-based assistance and augmentation cannot just be "seamless" - it must be trustworthy, resilient and transparent. We therefore argue for three crucial shifts in perspective to bridge this gap:

Shift 01: Trust

From Generic Trust to Calibrated Trust

Moving beyond static trust to dynamic models that help professionals appropriately gauge reliance in real-time under duress.

Shift 02: Resilience

From Seamlessness to Resilience by Design

Rejecting brittle perfection in favor of systems that fail gracefully, ensuring the human remains the ultimate authority during breakdowns.

Shift 03: Explainability

From Transparency to Situated Explainability

Replacing complex text explanations with embodied cues integrated directly into the physical workspace and available at a glance.

Call for Participation

We invite researchers, practitioners, and domain experts to join us in building a cross-disciplinary community. Our goal is to identify key problems and co-create a shared research agenda for the next generation of mission-critical XR. This long-format, in-person workshop will focus on bridging the gap between foundational principles and domain-specific issues in embodied, mission-critical work.

Topics of Interest

We welcome submissions that address the three proposed shifts (Trust, Resilience, Explainability) or other relevant themes, including but not limited to:

The Augmented Professional: Measuring cognitive load, skill evolution, and human agency in high-stakes contexts.
Resilient Systems: Design patterns for graceful failure ("resilience by design") and robust interaction.
Situated Explanations: Multi-modal feedback and embodied XAI for hands-free work.
Prototype to Practice: Sociotechnical challenges of adoption in fields like medicine, manufacturing, and public safety.
Trust Calibration: Methods for measuring and modeling trust in real-time high-stress scenarios.
Collabration: Human-AI teaming, XR-based teleoperation and remote embodiment.
Case Studies: Experiences and lessons learned from emergency response, industry, and other challenging environments.

Submission Details

We solicit 2–4 page position papers (excluding references). Submissions may present novel concepts, empirical findings, design provocations, or case studies.

Format: ACM Master Article Submission Template (Single Column).

Review Process: All submissions will be peer-reviewed (single-blind) by the organizers based on quality, relevance, and their potential to stimulate discussion.

Publication: With author consent, accepted papers will be published on this website and submitted to CEUR-WS for publishing open-access proceedings.

Author instructions: Technical instructions for camera-ready manuscript preparation can be found HERE.

Important: At least one author of each accepted submission must register for and attend the workshop in person to present their work.

Important Dates

~~Submission Deadline (SUBMISSION CLOSED!):February 18, 2026 (AoE)~~
~~Notification of Acceptance:~~ ~~February 27, 2026~~
~~CHI Early Registration:~~ ~~March 4, 2026~~
Camera-ready Version and Participation Information Submission: March 23, 2026
Workshop Date:April 14, 2026

Accepted Submissions

Alvaro Pastor and Pierre Bourdin

Designing memorable XR under stress: An empirically grounded criterion for long-term memory binding

Mohammad Javadian Farzaneh and Selim Balcisoy

Calibrated Trust and Resilience in Many-to-Many AI-Integrated XR Collaboration for Disaster Response

Reagan West and Junho Park

From Additive Dashboards to Subtractive XR: Workload-Adaptive AI Assistance for NG911 Dispatch

Oliver Hein, Dominik O. W. Hirschberg, Florian Alt and Philipp A. Rauschnabel

Listening Between the Lines: Exploration of Augmented Reality Supported Radio Communication for Challenging Environments

Matthew Wilchek, Kurt Luther and Feras Batarseh

From Explainable AI to Human-Centered Reliability: Quantifying and Visualizing Calibrated Trust in Mission-Critical XR

Julia Schorlemmer, Alia Saad, Sebastian Möller and Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons

When Simulation Meets Physiology: Adaptive Resilience for Mission-Critical XR in Fast-Jet Training

Jihyun Kim, Leah Tellier, Kara Sealock and Junho Park

Perceptual Scaffolding for Medical Triage in Mission-Critical XR: Design Materials for Multi-Agent AI Recommendations

Rodrigo Gutierrez, Jakob Uhl, Georg Regal and Manfred Tscheligi

Human-Agent Trust Mediation: Augmented Context Understanding as a Method to Dynamically Calibrate Machine-Reliance in Emergency Response

Sadman Saif, Fatemeh Sarshartehrani, Muhammad Zeeshan Karamat, Yahia Tawfik, Bo Ji, Brendan David-John and Christiana Chamon

AI-Augmented Human Decision-Making in Secure Space Operations

Alia Saad and Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons

XR Training in Challenging Environments: The Wind Turbines Case

Stephan Waltermann, Andre Borrmann, Michel Munzert, Frank Feinbube and Bosen Zhou

XR for Complex Datacenter Environments - Why XR Needs AAS and AI‑Driven Interaction to Support Operators in Next‑Generation Datacenters

Maëlan Poyer, Lorenzo Stefani, Iris David Du Mutel de Pierrepont Franzetti and Riccardo Parin

Operational Legitimacy in XR: Co-creating VR Training with Mountain Rescuers

Jazmin Collins, Poppy McLeod, Stephen Gilbert, Michael Dorneich, Angelique Taylor, Andrea Stevenson Won, Derek Spangler and Nina Lauharatanahirun

From Hazard Features to Resilient Systems: Bridging Neuroscience and Design in XR-AI for Challenging Environments

Florian Buchholz

XR in the Operating Room: A Participatory Approach to Identifying Resilient Use Cases for Surgical Instrument Logistics

Leon Pietschmann and Fritz Pickhardt

From Pilot to Infrastructure: Embedding XR as a Training Layer for Emergency Service Organisations

Pablo Pérez, Ignacio Benito, Ester Gonzalez-Sosa, Marta Orduna and Alvaro Villegas

XRTC: Immersive Telepresence for First Aid and Emergency Scenarios

Mirko Suznjevic, Katarina Misura, Sara Srebot, Lea Skorin-Kapov and Maja Matijasevic

From Training to Incident Response: Resilient XR and Digital Twin Support in Firefighting

Myungjun Lee, Hyeongil Nam, Jazeb Zafar, Jennifer Davidson, Yiqun Lin, Adam Cheng and Kangsoo Kim

Learning to Lead Under Stress: Designing AI Guidance for In-Hospital Resuscitation Team Leader Training in XR

John McAlaney, Mark Springett and Pejman Saeghe

Beyond Mistakes: Opportunities and challenges of XR for staff in prison and probation settings

Mengxing Li, Phoebe Zhang, Jiazhou Liu, Agnes Haryanto, Kadek Satriadi, Trung Nguyen, Deval Mehta, Zerina Lokmic-Tomkins and Tim Dwyer

HandovAR: Towards AR and AI Support for ICU Nurse Handover

Clara Sayffaerth

I Trust You Body: Using Augmented Avatars in Challenging Environments

Ioannis Safranoglou, Marcel Ebel, Alexios Stavroulakis, Iris Grassler and Katerina Mania

Direct Communication between Drone Operators and Field Responders through Augmented Reality

Xinyu Chen, Ke Li, Raimund Kammering, Wim Leemans and Frank Steinicke

Human-Robot Collaboration Design Space for Critical Large Scale Infrastructures

Workshop Schedule

A half-day, highly interactive workshop designed to move from problem mapping to a concrete research agenda.

Session 1: Framing the Challenges (14:15 - 15:45)
14:15	Welcome & Introduction: Framing the workshop topic and the three seismic shifts
14:25	Lightning Talks: Leading experts present real-world, high-stakes challenges
14:45	Breakout 1 ‐ Design for the Future: Groups sketch out future scenarios
15:15	Plenary 1 ‐ Results from the Future: Groups present and discuss their artifacts
15:45	Coffee Break & Networking (until 16:30)
Session 2: Envisioning & Agenda Setting (16:30 - 18:00)
16:30	Breakout 2 ‐ Backcasting the Path: Groups create a timeline of necessary research breakthroughs
17:15	Plenary 2 ‐ Synthesizing the Grand Challenges: Discussion and creation of a joint research agenda
17:45	Summary & Next Steps: Synthesizing the "Grand Challenges" for the co-authored vision paper
18:00	End of Workshop