Deformable Object Manipulation

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Overview

Deformable Object Manipulation studies how robots can perceive and control objects whose shape changes during contact, from cloth folding and cable routing to soft-tissue retraction. Approaches include physics models such as mass-spring systems, Cosserat rods, and material point methods; learned dynamics and world models; and control methods including model-predictive control, reinforcement learning, and imitation learning. Work increasingly combines simulation with real-robot data and uses visual, tactile, or force feedback to handle occlusion, unknown materials, and contact changes. A central challenge is making models both fast and physically reliable: real objects vary across trials, and simulation-to-real transfer, safe interaction, and evaluation beyond task completion remain difficult.

Latest papers

CardsList

104 papers14 papers in the last four weeks, down 12% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Instant-Fold: In-Context Imitation Learning for Deformable Object Manipulation

    Jun 2, 2026Yilong Wang, Cheng Qian, Edward JohnsDeformable Object ManipulationGeneralization in Robotic Manipulation

    The Robot Learning Lab Imperial College London

  2. DLO-Lab: Benchmarking Deformable Linear Object Manipulations with Differentiable Physics

    Jun 2, 2026Junyi Cao, Yian Wang, Ziyan Xiong +3Deformable Object ManipulationRobot Manipulation Benchmarks

    University of Massachusetts Amherst

  3. DeMaVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Foundation Model for Generalizable Deformable Manipulation

    May 29, 2026Taiyi Su, Jian Zhu, Tianjian Wang +9Language-Conditioned Robot ManipulationDeformable Object Manipulation

    1AIRC, Midea Group · 2Tongji University

  4. Phase-Conditioned Imitation Learning with Autonomous Failure Recovery for Robust Deformable Object Manipulation

    May 28, 2026Dayuan Chen, Kai Tang, Yukuan Zhang +2Bimanual Robotic ManipulationDeformable Object Manipulation

    Department of Robotics, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan · JC STEM Lab of Robotics for Soft Materials, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

  5. RoboHitch: Learning Visual Affordance from Disordered Keypoints for Hitch Knots Tying

    May 23, 2026Jiahui Zuo, Boyang Zhang, Fumin ZhangDeformable Object ManipulationRobotic Manipulation

    Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

  6. TactileReflex: Noise-Statistics-Driven Vision-Tactile Reflex Control for Force-Sensitive Manipulation

    May 22, 2026Ziyan Feng, Yulong Fu, Zheng Li +6Robotic ControlVision-Based Tactile Sensing

    Thrust of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China. · School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

  7. Closed-Loop Sim-to-Real Reinforcement Learning for Deformable Microfiber Shape Control

    May 20, 2026Alessandro Amici, Houari Bettahar, Veeti Jaakkola +1Sim-to-Real TransferDeformable Object Manipulation

    Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland

  8. Learning-Based Adaptive Control for Surgical Robotic Exposure Task on Deformable Tissues

    May 18, 2026Jiayi Liu, Kaiqi Wei, Yiwei Wang +2Deformable Object ManipulationVision-Based Robot Control

    Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

  9. Visual Sculpting: Visually-Aligned Planning Representations for Long-Horizon Robot Clay Sculpting

    May 17, 2026Peter Schaldenbrand, Jean OhLong-Horizon Robotic ManipulationDeformable Object Manipulation

    1The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University · 2Lavoro AI Research

  10. Learning Sim-Grounded Policies for Bimanual Rope Manipulation from Human Teleoperation Data

    May 15, 2026Gina Wigginghaus, Tim Missal, Berk Guler +2Robot Policy LearningBimanual Robotic Manipulation

    Technical University of Darmstadt · Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH · German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) +2

  11. Introducing Environmental Constraints to Grasping Strategies for Paper-Like Flexible Materials Using a Soft Gripper

    May 12, 2026Yi Dong, Yang Li, Jinjun Duan +1Robotic GraspingDeformable Object Manipulation

    College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 29 Yudao Street, Nanjing, 211106, Jiangsu, China. · Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Bionic Materials and Equipment, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 29 Yudao Street, Nanjing, 211106, Jiangsu, China.

  12. AirBender: Adaptive Transportation of Bendable Objects Using Dual UAVs

    May 7, 2026Jiawei Xu, Longsen Gao, Rafael Fierro +1Robot Trajectory TrackingAerial Robotics

    Autonomous and Intelligent Robotics Laboratory (AIRLab), Lehigh University, PA, 18015, USA · Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

  13. AssistDLO: Assistive Teleoperation for Deformable Linear Object Manipulation

    May 7, 2026Berk Guler, Simon Manschitz, Kay Pompetzki +1Bimanual Robotic ManipulationDeformable Object Manipulation

    TU Darmstadt, Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Computer Science Department, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany · Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH, Carl-Legien-Straße 30, 63073 Offenbach/Main, Germany · German Research Center for AI (DFKI), Research Department: Systems AI for Robot Learning; Hessian.AI; Robotics Institute Germany (RIG); Centre for Cognitive Science, Hochschulstr. 10, 64293 Darmstadt, Germany

  14. Neural Control: Adjoint Learning Through Equilibrium Constraints

    May 5, 2026Dezhong Tong, Jiawen Wang, Hengyi Zhou +3Robotic ControlDynamical Systems

    The Robotics Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US · The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, US

  15. Learning Equivariant Neural-Augmented Object Dynamics From Few Interactions

    May 4, 2026Sergio Orozco, Tushar Kusnur, Brandon May +2Deformable Object ManipulationRobotic Manipulation

    Brown University, Providence, RI · Robotics and AI (RAI) Institute, Cambridge, MA · General Motors

  16. Robotic Desk Organization: A Multi-Primitive Approach to Manipulating Heterogeneous Objects via Environmental Constraints

    May 4, 2026Yi Dong, Yangjun Liu, Jinjun Duan +2Robotic GraspingDeformable Object Manipulation

  17. Online Safety Filter for Deformable Object Manipulation with Horizon Agnostic Neural Operators

    May 1, 2026Jiaxing Li, Hanjiang Hu, Zhuoyuan Wang +2Safety-Critical ControlDeformable Object Manipulation

    Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

  18. LeHome: A Simulation Environment for Deformable Object Manipulation in Household Scenarios

    Apr 24, 2026Zeyi Li, Yushi Yang, Shawn Xie +15Robotics SimulationDeformable Object Manipulation

    Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. · Peking University. · Lightwheel. +1

  19. Learning-augmented robotic automation for real-world manufacturing

    Apr 24, 2026Yunho Kim, Quan Nguyen, Taewhan Kim +2Robotic ControlDeformable Object Manipulation

    All authors are with Neuromeka Co., Ltd.

  20. Wiggle and Go! System Identification for Zero-Shot Dynamic Rope Manipulation

    Apr 23, 2026Arthur Jakobsson, Abhinav Mahajan, Karthik Pullalarevu +6Robot Dynamics IdentificationDeformable Object Manipulation

    Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  21. Periodic Steady-State Control of a Handkerchief-Spinning Task Using a Parallel Anti-Parallelogram Tendon-driven Wrist

    Apr 20, 2026Lei Liu, Haonan Zhang, Huahang Xu +8Robotic ControlDexterous Manipulation

    Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China · School of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China · School of Artificial Intelligence, Beihang University, Beijing, China +10

  22. FLASH: Fast Learning via GPU-Accelerated Simulation for High-Fidelity Deformable Manipulation in Minutes

    Apr 19, 2026Siyuan Luo, Bingyang Zhou, Chong Zhang +9Contact-Rich Robotic ManipulationRobotics Simulation

    NUS Human-Centered Robotic Lab · ETH · ShanghaiTech University +2

  23. SIM1: Physics-Aligned Simulator as Zero-Shot Data Scaler in Deformable Worlds

    Apr 9, 2026Yunsong Zhou, Hangxu Liu, Xuekun Jiang +12Sim-to-Real TransferSynthetic Data Generation for Robotics

    Shanghai AI Lab · Fudan University · Shanghai Jiao Tong University +1

  24. ObjectMorpher: 3D-Aware Image Editing via Deformable 3DGS Models

    Mar 30, 2026Yuhuan Xie, Aoxuan Pan, Yi-Hua Huang +43D Shape EditingDeformable Object Manipulation

    The University of Hong Kong

  25. Probe-to-Grasp Manipulation Using Self-Sensing Pneumatic Variable-Stiffness Joints

    Mar 29, 2026Ngoc Duy Tran, Yeman Fan, Feng Dai +5Robotic GraspingDeformable Object Manipulation

  26. SoftMimicGen: A Data Generation System for Scalable Robot Learning in Deformable Object Manipulation

    Mar 26, 2026Masoud Moghani, Mahdi Azizian, Animesh Garg +3Synthetic Data Generation for RoboticsDeformable Object Manipulation

    NVIDIA · University of Toronto · Georgia Institute of Technology

  27. ViTac-Tracing: Visual-Tactile Imitation Learning of Deformable Object Tracing

    Mar 19, 2026Yongqiang Zhao, Haining Luo, Yupeng Wang +3Deformable Object ManipulationImitation Learning

    Robot Perception Laboratory, Department of Engineering, King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom · Personal Robotics Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

  28. Rapid Adaptation of Particle Dynamics for Generalized Deformable Object Mobile Manipulation

    Mar 18, 2026Bohan Wu, Roberto Martín-Martín, Li Fei-FeiDeformable Object ManipulationGeneralization in Robotic Manipulation

    the University of Texas at Austin, USA

  29. Robust Sim-to-Real Cloth Untangling through Reduced-Resolution Observations via Adaptive Force-Difference Quantization

    Mar 14, 2026Yoshihisa Tsurumine, Yuki Kadokawa, Kohei Hayashi +2Sim-to-Real TransferDeformable Object Manipulation

    All the authors are with the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan. · Christian Diehm is with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.

  30. Exploration-assisted Bottleneck Transition Toward Robust and Data-efficient Deformable Object Manipulation

    Mar 14, 2026Yujiro Onishi, Ryo Takizawa, Yoshiyuki Ohmura +1Deformable Object ManipulationGeneralization in Robotic Manipulation

    Mechano-Informatics Department, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.