mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

SoftGym: Benchmarking Deep Reinforcement Learning for Deformable Object Manipulation

arXiv 2011.07215 ↗First posted 14 Nov 2020cs.RO cs.LGcited by 118

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Abstract (arXiv)

Manipulating deformable objects has long been a challenge in robotics due to its high dimensional state representation and complex dynamics. Recent success in deep reinforcement learning provides a promising direction for learning to manipulate deformable objects with data driven methods. However, existing reinforcement learning benchmarks only cover tasks with direct state observability and simple low-dimensional dynamics or with relatively simple image-based environments, such as those with rigid objects. In this paper, we present SoftGym, a set of open-source simulated benchmarks for manipulating deformable objects, with a standard OpenAI Gym API and a Python interface for creating new environments. Our benchmark will enable reproducible research in this important area. Further, we evaluate a variety of algorithms on these tasks and highlight challenges for reinforcement learning algorithms, including dealing with a state representation that has a high intrinsic dimensionality and is partially observable. The experiments and analysis indicate the strengths and limitations of existing methods in the context of deformable object manipulation that can help point the way forward for future methods development. Code and videos of the learned policies can be found on our project website.

Key facts. Cited by 118 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 14 Nov 2020.

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Citing papers per year: 2021: 11; 2022: 16; 2023: 26; 2024: 20; 2025: 25; 2026: 20.

118 papers.

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  1. 2021What Matters in Learning from Offline Human Demonstrations for Robot Manipulationcited by 699
  2. 2023ManiSkill2: A Unified Benchmark for Generalizable Manipulation Skillscited by 313
  3. 2023Orbit: A Unified Simulation Framework for Interactive Robot Learning Environmentscited by 239
  4. 2023RoboGen: Towards Unleashing Infinite Data for Automated Robot Learning via Generative Simulationcited by 206
  5. 2021iGibson 2.0: Object-Centric Simulation for Robot Learning of Everyday Household Taskscited by 191
  6. 2021BEHAVIOR: Benchmark for Everyday Household Activities in Virtual, Interactive, and Ecological Environmentscited by 161
  7. 2024RL-VLM-F: Reinforcement Learning from Vision Language Foundation Model Feedbackcited by 147
  8. 2024BEHAVIOR-1K: A Human-Centered, Embodied AI Benchmark with 1,000 Everyday Activities and Realistic Simulationcited by 140
  9. 2024HumanoidBench: Simulated Humanoid Benchmark for Whole-Body Locomotion and Manipulationcited by 101
  10. 2022RoboCraft: Learning to See, Simulate, and Shape Elasto-Plastic Objects with Graph Networkscited by 69
  11. 2023ARNOLD: A Benchmark for Language-Grounded Task Learning With Continuous States in Realistic 3D Scenescited by 68
  12. 2023Gen2Sim: Scaling up Robot Learning in Simulation with Generative Modelscited by 62
38 more
  1. 2021Learning Visible Connectivity Dynamics for Cloth Smoothingcited by 61
  2. 2021FabricFlowNet: Bimanual Cloth Manipulation with a Flow-based Policycited by 54
  3. 2024GRUtopia: Dream General Robots in a City at Scalecited by 54
  4. 2024AdaptiGraph: Material-Adaptive Graph-Based Neural Dynamics for Robotic Manipulationcited by 52
  5. 2022Retrospectives on the Embodied AI Workshopcited by 46
  6. 2025AutoEval: Autonomous Evaluation of Generalist Robot Manipulation Policies in the Real Worldcited by 46
  7. 2026World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AIcited by 46
  8. 2022DiffSkill: Skill Abstraction from Differentiable Physics for Deformable Object Manipulations with Toolscited by 44
  9. 2023FluidLab: A Differentiable Environment for Benchmarking Complex Fluid Manipulationcited by 37
  10. 2025A Survey of Sim-to-Real Methods in RL: Progress, Prospects and Challenges with Foundation Modelscited by 36
  11. 2022Mesh-based Dynamics with Occlusion Reasoning for Cloth Manipulationcited by 32
  12. 2024BiGym: A Demo-Driven Mobile Bi-Manual Manipulation Benchmarkcited by 30
  13. 2023Learning Foresightful Dense Visual Affordance for Deformable Object Manipulationcited by 25
  14. 2022ACID: Action-Conditional Implicit Visual Dynamics for Deformable Object Manipulationcited by 24
  15. 2025ManipBench: Benchmarking Vision-Language Models for Low-Level Robot Manipulationcited by 24
  16. 2023ClothesNet: An Information-Rich 3D Garment Model Repository with Simulated Clothes Environmentcited by 22
  17. 2025Particle-Grid Neural Dynamics for Learning Deformable Object Models from RGB-D Videoscited by 22
  18. 2023Challenges for Monocular 6D Object Pose Estimation in Roboticscited by 21
  19. 2024Real-World Offline Reinforcement Learning from Vision Language Model Feedbackcited by 20
  20. 2024Hazards in Daily Life? Enabling Robots to Proactively Detect and Resolve Anomaliescited by 19
  21. 2024GarmentLab: A Unified Simulation and Benchmark for Garment Manipulationcited by 19
  22. 2021VisuoSpatial Foresight for Physical Sequential Fabric Manipulationcited by 18
  23. 2022Learning Deformable Object Manipulation from Expert Demonstrationscited by 18
  24. 2021Learning Latent Graph Dynamics for Visual Manipulation of Deformable Objectscited by 17
  25. 2025A Survey of Robotic Navigation and Manipulation with Physics Simulators in the Era of Embodied AIcited by 16
  26. 2022HandoverSim: A Simulation Framework and Benchmark for Human-to-Robot Object Handoverscited by 15
  27. 2022Learning Visuo-Haptic Skewering Strategies for Robot-Assisted Feedingcited by 15
  28. 2023Grounding Graph Network Simulators using Physical Sensor Observationscited by 15
  29. 2022Contact Points Discovery for Soft-Body Manipulations with Differentiable Physicscited by 14
  30. 2023Benchmarking the Sim-to-Real Gap in Cloth Manipulationcited by 14
  31. 2024Stabilizing Reinforcement Learning in Differentiable Multiphysics Simulationcited by 14
  32. 2021Untangling Dense Non-Planar Knots by Learning Manipulation Features and Recovery Policiescited by 11
  33. 2021A Bayesian Treatment of Real-to-Sim for Deformable Object Manipulationcited by 11
  34. 2024Learning Keypoints for Robotic Cloth Manipulation using Synthetic Datacited by 11
  35. 2023Foldsformer: Learning Sequential Multi-Step Cloth Manipulation With Space-Time Attentioncited by 10
  36. 2025Geometry-aware RL for Manipulation of Varying Shapes and Deformable Objectscited by 10
  37. 2022Self-supervised Transparent Liquid Segmentation for Robotic Pouringcited by 9
  38. 2023SoftMAC: Differentiable Soft Body Simulation with Forecast-based Contact Model and Two-way Coupling with Articulated Rigid Bodies and Clothescited by 9

50 most cited of 118 All 118 (JSON)