# SoftGym: Benchmarking Deep Reinforcement Learning for Deformable Object Manipulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.07215 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.07215/

## Key facts

- Cited by 121 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 Nov 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 121)

- [What Matters in Learning from Offline Human Demonstrations for Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03298/) (2021)
- [ManiSkill2: A Unified Benchmark for Generalizable Manipulation Skills](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04659/) (2023)
- [Orbit: A Unified Simulation Framework for Interactive Robot Learning Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04195/) (2023)
- [RoboGen: Towards Unleashing Infinite Data for Automated Robot Learning via Generative Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.01455/) (2023)
- [iGibson 2.0: Object-Centric Simulation for Robot Learning of Everyday Household Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03272/) (2021)
- [BEHAVIOR: Benchmark for Everyday Household Activities in Virtual, Interactive, and Ecological Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03332/) (2021)
- [RL-VLM-F: Reinforcement Learning from Vision Language Foundation Model Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03681/) (2024)
- [BEHAVIOR-1K: A Human-Centered, Embodied AI Benchmark with 1,000 Everyday Activities and Realistic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09227/) (2024)
- [HumanoidBench: Simulated Humanoid Benchmark for Whole-Body Locomotion and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10506/) (2024)
- [RoboCraft: Learning to See, Simulate, and Shape Elasto-Plastic Objects with Graph Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.02909/) (2022)
- [ARNOLD: A Benchmark for Language-Grounded Task Learning With Continuous States in Realistic 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04321/) (2023)
- [Gen2Sim: Scaling up Robot Learning in Simulation with Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.18308/) (2023)
- [Learning Visible Connectivity Dynamics for Cloth Smoothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10389/) (2021)
- [GRUtopia: Dream General Robots in a City at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10943/) (2024)
- [FabricFlowNet: Bimanual Cloth Manipulation with a Flow-based Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.05623/) (2021)
- [AdaptiGraph: Material-Adaptive Graph-Based Neural Dynamics for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07889/) (2024)
- [World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.12090/) (2026)
- [AutoEval: Autonomous Evaluation of Generalist Robot Manipulation Policies in the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.24278/) (2025)
- [Retrospectives on the Embodied AI Workshop](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06849/) (2022)
- [DiffSkill: Skill Abstraction from Differentiable Physics for Deformable Object Manipulations with Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.17275/) (2022)
- [FluidLab: A Differentiable Environment for Benchmarking Complex Fluid Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.02346/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Sim-to-Real Methods in RL: Progress, Prospects and Challenges with Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13187/) (2025)
- [Mesh-based Dynamics with Occlusion Reasoning for Cloth Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02881/) (2022)
- [BiGym: A Demo-Driven Mobile Bi-Manual Manipulation Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07788/) (2024)
- [Learning Foresightful Dense Visual Affordance for Deformable Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11057/) (2023)
- [Particle-Grid Neural Dynamics for Learning Deformable Object Models from RGB-D Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.15680/) (2025)
- [ACID: Action-Conditional Implicit Visual Dynamics for Deformable Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06856/) (2022)
- [ManipBench: Benchmarking Vision-Language Models for Low-Level Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09698/) (2025)
- [ClothesNet: An Information-Rich 3D Garment Model Repository with Simulated Clothes Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09987/) (2023)
- [GarmentLab: A Unified Simulation and Benchmark for Garment Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.01200/) (2024)

## 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.