HandsOn: A Large-Scale Simulation Benchmark for Generalizable Dexterous Manipulation
Organizations: Tsinghua University · NatureWill · Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications · Peking University
Abstract
General-purpose manipulation requires reliable behavior across embodiments, objects, and task demands. We introduce HandsOn, a composable simulation platform and benchmark for cross-embodiment dexterous manipulation. It supports five robotic arms, six dexterous hands, and approximately 200 rigid, articulated, and deformable assets in randomized scenes. The benchmark pairs 18,000 curated human demonstrations with 66 human-verified tasks: Core-50 supports demonstration-based learning and execution tests, while Transfer-16 evaluates asset and relation transfer, skill composition, and deformable manipulation without target-task training demonstrations. Qualitative real-robot rollouts illustrate sim-to-real transfer. Across diffusion, vision-language-action, world-action, and prompted VLM-based methods, the best trained multi-task policy achieves 29.1% Core-50 success. Without benchmark finetuning, GPT-6 using move_eef for palm-and-finger control achieves 5.2% on Core-50 and 1.9% on Transfer-16 over 660 trials. Trained-policy stage diagnostics expose failures in contact establishment, action coordination, and maintaining achieved goals, with additional sequencing errors in composed tasks. HandsOn provides a shared basis for investigating manipulation generalization and the limits of reliable physical interaction.
Figures & tables
| DexJoCo | DexVerse | Bench2Dex | DMG | SPD | HandsOn | |
| Task catalog | 11 | 100 | 26 | 9 | 6 scenes | 50 + 16 |
| Human demos | 1,100 | 3,180 | 1,300 | 60 | 2,000 | 18,000 |
| Generated demos | — | — | — | 21,000 | — | — |
| Language variation | Digits / words | NR | NR | NR | No input | 32 / 8 per goal a |
| Test-only tasks | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | 16 tasks |
| Transfer setting | Visual; language | Visual; embodiment | Visual / geometric | Initial states; objects | Real-task finetuning | Assets; skills; soft objects |
| Core-50 | Transfer-16 | |
| Purpose | Policy learning and execution evaluation | Asset, relation, and skill-composition generalization |
| Tasks | 50 | 16 (6 EVAL-Comb, 7 EVAL-Gen, 3 EVAL-Flex) |
| Demonstrations | 46–463 training trajectories per task (median 268) | None used for training; 13 tasks use a described duration proxy |
| Scope | Functional tool use, numerical and spatial grounding, articulation, bimanual manipulation | New asset relations, skill composition, three deformable interactions |
| Scoring | Task-macro success | Task-macro success and ordered progress (trained multi-task methods); success only for GPT-6 |
| Unit | Count |
| Curated demonstration trajectories | 18,000 |
| Training / validation trajectories | 15,178 / 2,822 |
| Recorded time steps | 6,053,555 |
| Camera videos (three per trajectory) | 54,000 |
| Native task identities / quota groups | 54 / 52 |
| Core-50 / Transfer-16 tasks | 50 / 16 |
| Factor | Examples | Must preserve |
| Appearance | Material, lighting, background, ceiling | Preserve recorded interaction and task-relevant visual semantics. |
| Camera | Extrinsic perturbation about calibration | Preserve timing; transform camera-frame labels if affected. |
| Language | Canonical instruction and paraphrases | Preserve object, numerical goal, direction, order, and constraints. |
| Task geometry | Object pose, goal relation, native reset | Retain each source task’s joint sampling distribution and compatible actions. |
| Dynamics | Mass, friction, compliance, actuation | Requires valid re-execution; not established by frozen-state re-rendering. |
| Model | Steps/plan | SR | Tasks 50% | P | F | CR | @1 | Early | Stall |
| OpenWAM | 16 | 29.1 | 11 | 40.8 | 23.8 | 22.1 | 8.3 | 10.9 | 65 |
| FastWAM | 16 | 26.4 | 9 | 42.7 | 20.2 | 15.3 | 10.2 | 13.0 | 72 |
| 30 | 24.9 | 10 | 40.4 | 14.6 | 19.7 | 14.6 | 14.1 | 78 | |
| DM0.5 | 30 | 21.4 | 9 | 37.7 | 10.0 | 16.7 | 10.9 | 13.9 | 80 |
| LingBot-VLA | 30 | 19.7 | 8 | 26.9 | 14.3 | 17.9 | 12.0 | 12.7 | 83 |
| HY-Embodied | 30 | 18.9 | 8 | 27.1 | 13.3 | 16.4 | 11.0 | 14.4 | 81 |
| Model | Asset/relation | Skill composition | Deformable | All 16 | ||||
| SR | Prog. | SR | Prog. | SR | Prog. | SR | Prog. | |
| 0.0 | 14.0 | 0.3 | 11.7 | 0.0 | 8.3 | 0.1 | 11.9 | |
| DM0.5 | 1.4 | 9.2 | 0.7 | 14.4 | 0.0 | 8.8 | 0.9 | 11.2 |
| LingBot-VLA | 0.0 | 13.3 | 0.0 | 4.2 | 0.0 | 11.3 | 0.0 | 9.3 |
| HY-Embodied | 0.0 | 9.6 | 0.0 | 4.6 | 0.0 | 6.2 | 0.0 | 6.9 |
| OpenWAM | 0.9 | 14.8 | 0.0 | 12.5 | 0.0 | 10.2 | 0.4 | 12.9 |
| Suite | Tasks | Successes / trials | SR (%) | 95% CI | Cap (%) |
| Core-50 | 50 | 26 / 500 | 5.2 | [3.6, 6.8] | 39.8 |
| Transfer-16 | 16 | 3 / 160 | 1.9 | [0.0, 3.8] | 38.1 |
| All | 66 | 29 / 660 | 4.4 | [3.2, 5.6] | 39.4 |
| Group | Demos | P75 (s) | Raw | With covariates |
| GTR (reference) | 392 | 8.2 | 34.9 [26.9, 43.1] | — |
| Nonprehensile | 362 | 10.5 | [ , 52.2] | [ , 52.9] |
| Articulated part | 259 | 6.7 | [ , 21.9] | [ , 19.8] |
| Finger actuation | 272 | 12.9 | [ , ] | [ , ] |
| Pour or fill | 208 | 17.7 | [ , ] | [ , ] |
| In-hand reorientation | 89 | 12.3 | [ , ] | [ , ] |
Appendix figures & tables9 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Task ID | Task Name | Interaction Type | Task Structure | Asset Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Align Blocks in Midair | CR | SS | RB |
| 02 | Connect Charger and Cable | CR | LH | RB |
| 03 | Cover Box | CR | SS | RB |
| 04 | Cover Pitcher | CR | SS | RB |
| 05 | Fill Cup | F | LH | RB, AR |
| 06 | Fit Device Cover | CR | SS | RB |
| ID | Upstream task or asset | Adaptation or reuse in HandsOn |
| 08 J | DexJoCo: Hammer nail | Adds a supporting hand holding the wood block and a task-specific nail-depth condition. |
| 12 J | DexJoCo: Bimanual microwave | Adapts the loading, door-closing, and activation sequence to the collection platform. |
| 14 J | DexJoCo: Click mouse | Requires moving the mouse onto its pad before a permitted click. |
| 23 J | DexJoCo: Bimanual photograph | Retains camera aiming and shutter activation with platform-specific contact and execution logic. |
| 50 J | DexJoCo: Water plant | Adds grasp, trigger-contact, and aim-sensitive spray conditions. |
| 10 V | DexVerse: BimanualLiftCarton | Adapts bilateral lifting to lower-side support and a three-second airborne hold. |
| Task ID | Supporting Core-50 tasks | P75 frames | Seconds | Actions |
| Comb01 | Cover Pitcher + Cover Box | 59.2 | 1776 | |
| Comb02 | Open Laptop + Move and Click Mouse | 32.1 | 963 | |
| Comb03 | Pass Block + Cover Box | 40.5 | 1215 | |
| Comb04 | Place Fruit in Bucket + Photograph Logo | 26.8 | 804 | |
| Comb05 | Scrub Bottle + Fill Cup | 78.9 | 2367 | |
| Comb06 | Pour Seasonings + Stir Pot | 78.3 | 2349 |
| Dimension | Training support | Evaluation question |
| Asset/relation | Object interaction, covering, orienting, passing | Can a skill operate on a new target or asset relation? |
| Skill composition | Opening a laptop; moving and clicking a mouse; scrubbing; filling | Can trained behaviors be connected in a new sequence with valid stage transitions? |
| Deformable tasks | Rigid/articulated object manipulation | Can the policy adapt to compression, folding, and packing? |
| ID | Task | Successes | SR (%) | Cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core-50 | ||||
| 01 | Align Blocks in Midair | 0 / 10 | 0 | 5 |
| 02 | Connect Charger and Cable | 0 / 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 03 | Cover Box | 0 / 10 | 0 | 0 |
| 04 | Cover Pitcher | 0 / 10 | 0 | 6 |
| 05 | Fill Cup | 0 / 10 | 0 | 10 |
| Model | Successes / episodes | SR (%) | Episodes CI (%) | Tasks+episodes CI (%) |
| OpenWAM | 1,453 / 5,000 | 29.1 | [28.0, 30.1] | [22.8, 36.0] |
| FastWAM | 1,319 / 5,000 | 26.4 | [25.4, 27.4] | [20.0, 33.8] |
| 1,243 / 5,000 | 24.9 | [23.8, 25.9] | [18.6, 31.7] | |
| DM0.5 | 1,072 / 5,000 | 21.4 | [20.5, 22.4] | [15.2, 28.1] |
| LingBot-VLA | 984 / 5,000 | 19.7 | [18.8, 20.6] | [13.6, 26.2] |
| HY-Embodied | 947 / 4,999 | 18.9 | [18.0, 19.8] | [13.2, 25.4] |
| ID | Task | OW | FW | DM | LB | HY | Motus | SF | DP | GPT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Align Blocks in Midair | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 02 | Connect Charger and Cable | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 03 | Cover Box | 61 | 0 | 34 | 34 | 57 | 38 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 04 | Cover Pitcher | 12 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 05 | Fill Cup | 4 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 06 | Fit Device Cover | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Trajectories | Task 24 | 95% CI | Task 43 | 95% CI |
| 10 | 7/100 | [3.4, 13.7] | 1/100 | [0.2, 5.4] |
| 50 | 23/100 | [15.8, 32.2] | 11/100 | [6.3, 18.6] |
| 100 | 31/100 | [22.8, 40.6] | 13/100 | [7.8, 21.0] |
| 200 | 65/100 | [55.3, 73.6] | 18/100 | [11.7, 26.7] |
| Full (438 / 439) | 83/100 | [74.5, 89.1] | 44/100 | [34.7, 53.8] |
| Task | Screenshot | Task Instruction |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Align Blocks in Midair | Lift both assigned blocks with their assigned hands, then mate their marked faces in midair and hold the physical contact stable for 0.4 seconds. | |
| 02 Connect Charger and Cable | Insert the charger plug into the power strip first, then insert the charging cable connector into the charger head. | |
| 03 Cover Box | Align the box lid and place it onto the clear box. | |
| 04 Cover Pitcher | Align the pitcher lid and place it onto the pitcher body. | |
| 05 Fill Cup | Hold the mug upright under the faucet with the left hand. Open the right lever outward past 70 percent, fill for half a second, place the mug on the marked pad, and close the faucet. | |
| 06 Fit Device Cover | Use both hands on opposite sides of the device cover to carry it together over the device body, then align it with its matching interface and seat it. |
Robotic Manipulation
Robotic manipulation studies how robots perceive, plan, and control physical interactions to grasp, move, assemble, and use objects.
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