cs.ROMay 25, 2026

PhyPush: One Push is All You Need for Sensorless Physical Property Estimation with Physics-Guided Transformers

Authors: Koyo FujiiLuis FigueredoPraminda Caleb-SollyIvan BoschiEdoardo Ida'Marco CarricatoAly Magassouba

Abstract

Accurately estimating object mass and friction is fundamental to reliable robotic manipulation. While interactive perception is powerful, most approaches rely on specialized hardware like force/torque sensors, limiting scalability. This paper introduces PhyPush, a physics-guided Transformer that estimates an object's mass and friction coefficient using only end-effector velocity from a single push, data readily available on standard robotic arms. By incorporating Newton's second law and the Coulomb friction model through a physics-guided loss, the model improves physical consistency and generalizes to unseen objects and surfaces. Across diverse setups, PhyPush consistently achieves highly accurate estimations in challenging out-of-domain conditions. In simulation, it reduces error by over 10% compared to a baseline with privileged force data, while in real-world experiments, it successfully zero-shot transfers from simulation to outperform a purely data-driven baseline.

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