Traceable Human-to-Humanoid Sign Language Benchmarking
Organizations: Hefei University of Technology
Abstract
Sign data collection is costly, and teleoperation scales poorly, motivating reuse of large video corpora. Humanoid signing requires converting video-derived human motion into robot trajectories while preserving linguistic motion cues. Errors from fitting, human-motion repair, retargeting, robot geometry repair, and control are hard to separate from the final trajectory alone. We introduce HumanoidCSL-20K, a dataset and benchmark of 20,648 sentence-level Chinese Sign Language sequences, each with four aligned versions: the source, the repaired human motion, the direct robot reference, and the geometry-repaired robot reference. Observation-supported local human-motion repair, full-robot geometry repair, and cross-representation provenance make each transformation traceable. Paired evaluations measure human-motion continuity and content preservation, robot-reference feasibility, and physical execution. A sign-specific kinematic-reference protocol scores handshape, location, palm orientation, and inter-hand relation over the full planned motion. Full-corpus results show fewer abnormal arm / hand steps and less inter-hand and hand-body penetration after repair. Control experiments separate reference learnability from curriculum effects, while component scores expose remaining execution errors.
Figures & tables
| AMP | Ours, single-stage | Ours, two-stage + ramp | |||||||
| Reference | AS | Fin. | Pen. | AS | Fin. | Pen. | AS | Fin. | Pen. |
| Raw + Direct | 2.73 | 0.0 | 32.24 | 34.99 | 56.7 | 36.15 | 35.51 | 60.0 | 35.53 |
| Fused + Direct | 2.68 | 0.0 | 26.39 | 49.15 | 96.7 | 25.97 | 49.29 | 98.3 | 26.08 |
| Fused + Geometry | 2.79 | 0.0 | 23.50 | 52.58 | 100.0 | 16.09 | 54.10 | 100.0 | 13.03 |
Appendix figures & tables41 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| State | Motion payload | Linked records |
| SMPL-X root, translation, shape, body, and hand arrays | Video and sentence IDs, source frames and timestamps, coordinate convention | |
| Same human-motion schema | Part masks, repair intervals, anchors, operations, observation-support scores | |
| Floating base and 53-coordinate robot motion | Robot model, joint ordering, collision model, coupling definitions | |
| Same robot-motion schema | Deformation, residual penetration, constraint checks, certification flag |
| Provenance category | Score |
| Retained source fit | 1.00 |
| Exit transition from a frozen segment | 0.70 |
| Two-anchor interpolation | 0.50 |
| Single-anchor freezing | 0.25 |
| Long-segment freezing | 0.10 |
| Set | Size | Source | Role |
| 20,652 | Full source manifest | Production coverage, corpus statistics, and paired human and geometry evaluation | |
| 600 | Fixed stratified subset | Repair-cue diagnostics (Figure 8 ) | |
| 75 | Recognizer-held-out dev/test sequences | Content preservation (frozen recognizer) | |
| 20 | Fixed random sample | Self-target and fixed-reference replay |
| Sequence ID | Sentence-level meaning (English translation) |
|---|---|
| S000374_P0004_T00 | I go to bed early too, at ten every night. Going to bed early is good for your health. |
| S000443_P0000_T00 | Take a break. |
| S000748_P0004_T00 | Take the bus to the train station from across the road. |
| S000919_P0008_T00 | What tasty dishes does your restaurant have? Please recommend some. |
| S001518_P0004_T00 | Why do you drink coffee at night? |
| S001836_P0000_T00 | Only by delighting the eye and mind can works of art move and educate people. |
| Group | DoF | Joints and ranges |
| Legs | 12 | Hip pitch, roll, yaw; knee; ankle pitch, roll (per leg) |
| Waist | 3 | Yaw, roll, pitch |
| Arms | 14 | Shoulder pitch, roll, yaw; elbow; wrist roll, pitch, yaw (per arm) |
| Hands, actuated | 12 | Thumb rotation rad; thumb flexion rad; index, middle, ring, and little flexion rad |
| Hands, passive | 12 | Distal thumb and finger joints coupled to the actuated joints |
| Total | 53 | 41 actuated coordinates, 12 mimic constraints |
| Set | Category | Pairs |
| Inter-hand | 289 | |
| Hand-contralateral arm | 136 | |
| Hand-same-side arm | 134 | |
| Hand-torso | 102 | |
| Hand-head | 34 | |
| Hand-leg | 612 |
| Quantity | Value | Implementation value | Role |
| Inter-wrist displacement residual | |||
| First joint difference | |||
| Second joint difference | |||
| Third joint difference | |||
| Wrist-residual continuity (Equation 14 ) | |||
| Deviation from the projected initialization |
| Parameter | Value | Unit / Dimension | Role |
| ( ) | rad | Hard per-joint budget on active finger joints | |
| mm ( m) | Target geometric clearance margin | ||
| dimensionless | First difference regularizer ( ) | ||
| dimensionless | Second difference regularizer ( ) | ||
| dimensionless | Third difference regularizer ( ) | ||
| Quadratic penalty on penetration slack |
| Term | Unweighted term | |||
| Anchor position | 0.50 m | 1.00 | 1.00 | |
| Anchor orientation | 0.60 rad | 0.75 | 0.75 | |
| Body position | , 14 bodies | 0.35 m | 3.00 | 3.00 |
| Body orientation | , 14 bodies | 0.60 rad | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Body linear velocity | , 14 bodies | 1.00 m/s | 0.25 | 0.25 |
| Body angular velocity | , 14 bodies | 3.14 rad/s | 0.25 | 0.25 |
| Observation block | Actor | Critic |
| Reference joint positions and velocities | 106 | 106 |
| Reference-anchor relative position | – | 3 |
| Reference-anchor relative orientation | 6 | 6 |
| Tracked-body positions ( ) | – | 42 |
| Tracked-body orientations ( ) | – | 84 |
| Base linear velocity | – | 3 |
| Metric | Fused Raw | Fused Global |
| Arm abnormal steps (pp) | ||
| Hand abnormal steps (pp) |
| Group / condition | Changed units (%) | Path ratio (%) | Step variation | Source dev. (rad) |
| Arms / Raw | 0.00 | 100.00 | 5618.9 | 0.0000 |
| Arms / Global smoothing | 99.68 | 47.21 | 585.4 | 0.1391 |
| Arms / Fused repair | 79.75 | 36.49 | 1037.3 | 0.3741 |
| Hands / Raw | 0.00 | 100.00 | 7495.1 | 0.0000 |
| Hands / Global smoothing | 85.17 | 58.95 | 2722.4 | 0.1134 |
| Hands / Fused repair | 61.34 | 34.23 | 1371.9 | 0.3807 |
| Group / condition | Supported dev. (rad) | Supported changed (%) | Flagged dev. (rad) | From flagged (%) |
| Arms / Global smoothing | 0.0769 | 99.62 | 0.1632 | 82.5 |
| Arms / Fused repair | 0.0418 | 38.94 | 0.5246 | 96.4 |
| Hands / Global smoothing | 0.0594 | 99.57 | 0.1364 | 83.5 |
| Hands / Fused repair | 0.0000 | 0.00 | 0.5549 | 100.0 |
| Human motion | BLEU-1 | BLEU-2 | BLEU-3 | BLEU-4 |
| Raw | 54.39 | 41.46 | 32.88 | 26.59 |
| Global smoothing | 48.65 | 37.33 | 30.06 | 24.50 |
| Fused repair | 54.10 | 41.17 | 32.64 | 26.29 |
| Contrast / metric | Difference [95% interval] | Four-order interval |
| Global Raw / BLEU-1 | ||
| Global Raw / BLEU-2 | ||
| Global Raw / BLEU-3 | ||
| Global Raw / BLEU-4 | ||
| Fused Raw / BLEU-1 | ||
| Fused Raw / BLEU-2 |
| Metric | Global Raw (Direct) | Geometry Fused + Direct | Geometry Global + Direct |
| Pen. frames (pp) | |||
| Inter-frame pen. (pp) | |||
| Mean pen. depth (mm) | |||
| Pen.-free clips (pp) |
| Grid frames (%) | Interior samples (%) | |||
| Pair scope | Direct | Geometry ( ) | Direct | Geometry ( ) |
| Inter-hand + hand-body | 26.6152 | 0.0993 | 26.6520 | 0.1140 |
| Intra-hand | 31.4145 | 0.2841 | 31.4028 | 0.2848 |
| All audited pairs | 50.1835 | 0.2904 | 50.2044 | 0.3027 |
| Robot reference | Output | Checks passed | Certified | Joint RMS (rad) | Relation RMS (cm) | Runtime (s) |
| Fused + Direct | 20,649 | 0 | 0 | 0.0000 | 0.000 | 2.46 |
| Fused + Geometry | 20,648 | 20,648 | 18,214 | 0.1886 | 7.955 | 366.93 |
| Group | Sequences | At cap | Penetrating samples (%) |
| (i) Control-grid only | 762 | 52 | 0.18 |
| (ii) Native intra-hand | 615 | 562 | 3.03 |
| (iii) Native cross-part | 1,057 | 810 | 3.19 |
| All uncertified | 2,434 | 1,424 | 2.21 |
| Component | Per-frame error | Nominal | Alternative |
| Handshape | Largest absolute error over 12 active joints | 0.30 rad | 0.50 rad |
| Location | Larger left/right wrist position error | 10 cm | 15 cm |
| Orientation | Larger left/right palm rotation error | rad | rad |
| Relation | Error in the right-minus-left wrist vector | 10 cm | 15 cm |
| Controller / reference | ActionScore | JointPass (%) | Finished (%) | Pen. (%) | Depth (mm) |
| (a) Ours, single-stage | |||||
| Raw + Direct | 34.99 | 7.50 | 56.7 | 36.15 | 0.548 |
| Global + Direct | 50.17 | 12.46 | 100.0 | 27.67 | 0.309 |
| Fused + Direct | 49.15 | 13.56 | 96.7 | 25.97 | 0.865 |
| Fused + Geometry | 52.58 | 16.32 | 100.0 | 16.09 | 0.138 |
| (b) Ours, two-stage + ramp | |||||
| ActionScore | Finished (%) | |||||
| Reference | 42 | 1234 | 777 | 42 | 1234 | 777 |
| (a) Single-stage training | ||||||
| Raw + Direct | 30.00 | 36.93 | 38.05 | 45 | 60 | 65 |
| Global + Direct | 49.27 | 50.30 | 50.92 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Fused + Direct | 50.13 | 49.46 | 47.85 | 100 | 100 | 90 |
| Fused + Geometry | 52.20 | 52.03 | 53.51 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Coverage | Reached-frame RMS | Pen. mm | |||
| Reference | (%) | Hand (rad) | Wrist (cm) | Palm ( ∘ ) | (%) |
| (a) Single-stage training: reference processing | |||||
| Raw + Direct | 68.8 | 0.0896 | 13.02 | 48.50 | 15.69 |
| Global + Direct | 100.0 | 0.0821 | 14.45 | 43.65 | 13.08 |
| Fused + Direct | 98.4 | 0.0926 | 14.55 | 43.81 | 10.51 |
| Fused + Geometry | 100.0 | 0.0792 | 13.97 | 40.97 | 5.51 |
| Replay | Additional diagnostics | Depth (mm) | |||||
| Reference | Finished (%) | Coverage (%) | Relation (cm) | Limit (%) | Coupling (rad) | Mean | Peak |
| (a) Single-stage training: reference processing | |||||||
| Raw + Direct | 56.7 | 68.8 | 13.37 | 0.476 | 0.0957 | 0.548 | 9.21 |
| Global + Direct | 100.0 | 100.0 | 12.32 | 0.274 | 0.0629 | 0.309 | 6.33 |
| Fused + Direct | 96.7 | 98.4 | 11.37 | 0.307 | 0.0687 | 0.865 | 10.65 |
| Fused + Geometry | 100.0 | 100.0 | 10.38 | 0.498 | 0.0614 | 0.138 | 3.29 |
| Continuous component score | ActionScore | CA | |||||
| Reference | Hand- shape | Location | Orient. | Relation | Nominal | Alt. | CA nom. (%) |
| (a) Single-stage training: reference processing | |||||||
| Raw + Direct | 53.55 | 30.56 | 22.80 | 33.05 | 34.99 | 47.84 | 35.94 |
| Global + Direct | 81.24 | 36.11 | 35.30 | 48.03 | 50.17 | 69.32 | 50.06 |
| Fused + Direct | 77.30 | 34.50 | 33.02 | 51.77 | 49.15 | 68.05 | 48.44 |
| Fused + Geometry | 81.34 | 36.37 | 36.48 | 56.13 | 52.58 | 71.75 | 51.78 |
| Reference | Hand- shape | Location | Orient. | Relation | CA nominal | CA alternative | JointPass alternative |
| (a) Single-stage training: reference processing | |||||||
| Raw + Direct | 61.26 | 29.67 | 18.30 | 34.53 | 35.94 | 54.12 | 23.47 |
| Global + Direct | 92.62 | 29.89 | 29.66 | 48.07 | 50.06 | 76.50 | 37.67 |
| Fused + Direct | 86.40 | 27.77 | 25.63 | 53.94 | 48.44 | 75.47 | 41.26 |
| Fused + Geometry | 91.05 | 28.89 | 28.96 | 58.21 | 51.78 | 80.35 | 49.95 |
| (b) Two-stage training: reference processing and ramp ablation | |||||||
| Reference | Windows (%) | Hand | Wrist | Palm | Relation |
| Velocity error (hand and palm in rad/s; wrist and relation in m/s) | |||||
| (a) Single-stage training: reference processing | |||||
| Raw + Direct | 68.6 | 1.042 | 1.212 | 11.546 | 1.324 |
| Global + Direct | 100.0 | 0.741 | 0.721 | 5.090 | 0.816 |
| Fused + Direct | 98.4 | 0.657 | 0.592 | 4.489 | 0.637 |
| Fused + Geometry | 100.0 | 0.517 | 0.556 | 4.072 | 0.616 |
| Panel | Condition | CA area | JointPass area |
| a | Raw + Direct | 47.454 | 21.671 |
| a | Global + Direct | 69.305 | 37.678 |
| a | Fused + Direct | 68.044 | 39.974 |
| a | Fused + Geometry | 71.755 | 46.943 |
| b | Raw + Direct | 49.029 | 22.492 |
| b | Fused + Direct | 68.522 | 39.803 |
| Right side | Left side | ||||||
| Operation | Score | Share (%) | Arm RMS (rad) | Hand RMS (rad) | Share (%) | Arm RMS (rad) | Hand RMS (rad) |
| Retained source fit | 1.00 | 65.43 | 0.162 | 0.062 | 36.08 | 0.154 | 0.057 |
| Exit transition | 0.70 | 0.12 | 0.129 | 0.054 | 2.00 | 0.173 | 0.059 |
| Two-anchor interpolation | 0.50 | 19.07 | 0.179 | 0.070 | 6.23 | 0.181 | 0.070 |
| Single-anchor freezing | 0.25 | 3.52 | 0.150 | 0.105 | 2.16 | 0.148 | 0.057 |
| Long-segment freezing | 0.10 | 0.50 | 0.240 | 0.061 | 42.17 | 0.105 | 0.065 |