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. Coordinated Manipulation of Hybrid Deformable-Rigid Objects in Constrained Environments

    Mar 13, 2026Anees Peringal, Anup Teejo Mathew, Panagiotis liatsis +1Cosserat Rod ModelingDeformable Object Manipulation

    Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE, and also with the Khalifa University Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS), Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE · Department of Computer Science, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

  2. A gripper for flap separation and opening of sealed bags

    Mar 11, 2026Sergi Foix, Jaume Oriol, Carme Torras +1Robotic Gripper DesignRobotic Grasping

    Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial, CSIC-UPC, Llorens i Artigas 4-6, 08028 Barcelona, Spain

  3. Learning Bimanual Cloth Manipulation with Vision-based Tactile Sensing via Single Robotic Arm

    Mar 11, 2026Dongmyoung Lee, Wei Chen, Xiaoshuai Chen +2Deformable Object ManipulationBimanual Robotic Manipulation

    Robot Intelligence Lab, Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, 25 Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2DB, UK

  4. GarmentPile++: Affordance-Driven Cluttered Garments Retrieval with Vision-Language Reasoning

    Mar 4, 2026Mingleyang Li, Yuran Wang, Yue Chen +6Affordance-Based Robotic ManipulationRobotic Manipulation

    Peking University · The University of Hong Kong · Northwestern University

  5. RL-Based Coverage Path Planning for Deformable Objects on 3D Surfaces

    Mar 3, 2026Yuhang Zhang, Jinming Ma, Feng WuCoverage Path PlanningDeformable Object Manipulation

    School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China · Xiaomi Robotics Lab, Beijing, China

  6. A Perspective on Open Challenges in Deformable Object Manipulation

    Feb 26, 2026Ryan Paul McKennaa, John OyekanDeformable Object ManipulationGeneralization in Robotic Manipulation

    Department of Computer Science, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom

  7. Self-Curriculum Model-based Reinforcement Learning for Shape Control of Deformable Linear Objects

    Feb 25, 2026Zhaowei Liang, Song Wang, Zhao Jin +2Deformable Object ManipulationCurriculum RL

    All authors are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

  8. Learning Dynamic Rope Manipulation Using Task-Level Iterative Learning Control

    Feb 24, 2026Krishna Suresh, Chris AtkesonIterative Learning ControlDynamic Robotic Manipulation

    Carnegie Mellon University

  9. A Real-World Grasping-in-Clutter Performance Evaluation Benchmark for Robotic Food Waste Sorting

    Feb 21, 2026Moniesha Thilakarathna, Xing Wang, Min Wang +3Robotic GraspingRobot Manipulation Benchmarks

    Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Canberra, 11 Kirinari St, Bruce ACT 2617, Australia

  10. Latent Diffeomorphic Co-Design of End-Effectors for Deformable and Fragile Object Manipulation

    Feb 20, 2026Kei Ikemura, Yifei Dong, Florian T. PokornyRobot Morphology-Control Co-DesignDeformable Object Manipulation

  11. Learning to unfold cloth: Scaling up world models to deformable object manipulation

    Feb 18, 2026Jack Rome, Stephen James, Subramanian RamamoorthyDeformable Object ManipulationGeneralization in Robotic Manipulation

    University of Edinburgh · Imperial College London

  12. TWISTED-RL: Hierarchical Skilled Agents for Knot-Tying without Human Demonstrations

    Feb 16, 2026Guy Freund, Tom Jurgenson, Matan Sudry +1Robotic ManipulationRobot Skill Learning

    Reichman University · Technion – Israel Institute of Technology · The University of Texas at Austin

  13. Posterior-driven Heuristic Support Adaptation in a Probabilistic Treatment of Real2Sim2Real for Vision-Driven Deformable Linear Object Manipulation

    Oct 30, 2025Georgios Kamaras, Craig Innes, Subramanian RamamoorthySimulation-Based InferenceAdaptive Inference

    School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, UK. · Heriot-Watt University · UKRI Turing AI World Leading Researcher Fellowship on AI for Person-Centred and Teachable Autonomy

  14. RTFF: Random-to-Target Fabric Flattening Policy using Dual-Arm Manipulator

    Oct 1, 2025Kai Tang, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Hang Xu +3Bimanual Robotic ManipulationDeformable Object Manipulation

    Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China · Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom · JD.COM, Shenzhen, China +2