mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Factory: Fast Contact for Robotic Assembly

arXiv 2205.03532 ↗First posted 7 May 2022cs.RO cs.GR cs.LGcited by 49

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Abstract (arXiv)

Robotic assembly is one of the oldest and most challenging applications of robotics. In other areas of robotics, such as perception and grasping, simulation has rapidly accelerated research progress, particularly when combined with modern deep learning. However, accurately, efficiently, and robustly simulating the range of contact-rich interactions in assembly remains a longstanding challenge. In this work, we present Factory, a set of physics simulation methods and robot learning tools for such applications. We achieve real-time or faster simulation of a wide range of contact-rich scenes, including simultaneous simulation of 1000 nut-and-bolt interactions. We provide 60 carefully-designed part models, 3 robotic assembly environments, and 7 robot controllers for training and testing virtual robots. Finally, we train and evaluate proof-of-concept reinforcement learning policies for nut-and-bolt assembly. We aim for Factory to open the doors to using simulation for robotic assembly, as well as many other contact-rich applications in robotics. Please see https://sites.google.com/nvidia.com/factory for supplementary content, including videos.

Key facts. Cited by 49 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 58 of its 115 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 May 2022.

Builds on

58 of 115 references.

References · 58

  1. 2017Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real Worldcited by 1,401
  2. 2021Isaac Gym: High Performance GPU-Based Physics Simulation For Robot Learningcited by 882
  3. 2018Learning Dexterous In-Hand Manipulationcited by 643
  4. 2020SAPIEN: A SimulAted Part-based Interactive ENvironmentcited by 584
  5. 2021Habitat 2.0: Training Home Assistants to Rearrange their Habitatcited by 501
  6. 2020Learning Quadrupedal Locomotion over Challenging Terraincited by 494
  7. 2021Learning to Walk in Minutes Using Massively Parallel Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 395
  8. 2017Leveraging Demonstrations for Deep Reinforcement Learning on Robotics Problems with Sparse Rewardscited by 302
  9. 2018Closing the Sim-to-Real Loop: Adapting Simulation Randomization with Real World Experiencecited by 203
  10. 2018RoboTurk: A Crowdsourcing Platform for Robotic Skill Learning through Imitationcited by 202
  11. 2021iGibson 2.0: Object-Centric Simulation for Robot Learning of Everyday Household Taskscited by 191
  12. 2021A System for General In-Hand Object Re-Orientationcited by 155
38 more
  1. 2020ACRONYM: A Large-Scale Grasp Dataset Based on Simulationcited by 115
  2. 2021ManipulaTHOR: A Framework for Visual Object Manipulationcited by 101
  3. 2019Making Sense of Vision and Touch: Learning Multimodal Representations for Contact-Rich Taskscited by 80
  4. 2021FlingBot: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Dynamic Manipulation for Cloth Unfoldingcited by 80
  5. 2019IKEA Furniture Assembly Environment for Long-Horizon Complex Manipulation Taskscited by 68
  6. 2020TACTO: A Fast, Flexible, and Open-source Simulator for High-Resolution Vision-based Tactile Sensorscited by 59
  7. 2019Variable Impedance Control in End-Effector Space: An Action Space for Reinforcement Learning in Contact-Rich Taskscited by 56
  8. 2016Learning Locomotion Skills Using DeepRL: Does the Choice of Action Space Matter?cited by 44
  9. 2021Adversarial Skill Chaining for Long-Horizon Robot Manipulation via Terminal State Regularizationcited by 44
  10. 2021Taxim: An Example-based Simulation Model for GelSight Tactile Sensorscited by 42
  11. 2017Deep Reinforcement Learning for High Precision Assembly Taskscited by 37
  12. 2018A Practical Approach to Insertion with Variable Socket Position Using Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 35
  13. 2021Transferring Dexterous Manipulation from GPU Simulation to a Remote Real-World TriFingercited by 34
  14. 2019Reinforcement Learning on Variable Impedance Controller for High-Precision Robotic Assemblycited by 33
  15. 2020Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Robotic Industrial Insertion Taskscited by 28
  16. 2021Sim-to-Real for Robotic Tactile Sensing via Physics-Based Simulation and Learned Latent Projectionscited by 27
  17. 2020Variable Compliance Control for Robotic Peg-in-Hole Assembly: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approachcited by 25
  18. 2021Robust Multi-Modal Policies for Industrial Assembly via Reinforcement Learning and Demonstrations: A Large-Scale Studycited by 24
  19. 2020Residual Learning from Demonstration: Adapting DMPs for Contact-rich Manipulationcited by 22
  20. 2020Learning a Contact-Adaptive Controller for Robust, Efficient Legged Locomotioncited by 22
  21. 2018Learning Robotic Assembly from CADcited by 21
  22. 2020Tactile Object Pose Estimation from the First Touch with Geometric Contact Renderingcited by 19
  23. 2020Inferring the Material Properties of Granular Media for Robotic Taskscited by 18
  24. 2020Learning Dense Rewards for Contact-Rich Manipulation Taskscited by 18
  25. 2021Learning Insertion Primitives with Discrete-Continuous Hybrid Action Space for Robotic Assembly Taskscited by 15
  26. 2019Learning to Scaffold the Development of Robotic Manipulation Skillscited by 13
  27. 2021RoboAssembly: Learning Generalizable Furniture Assembly Policy in a Novel Multi-robot Contact-rich Simulation Environmentcited by 13
  28. 2020STReSSD: Sim-To-Real from Sound for Stochastic Dynamicscited by 12
  29. 2019MAT: Multi-Fingered Adaptive Tactile Grasping via Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 11
  30. 2021Trajectory Optimization for Manipulation of Deformable Objects: Assembly of Belt Drive Unitscited by 11
  31. 2021Assistive Tele-op: Leveraging Transformers to Collect Robotic Task Demonstrationscited by 11
  32. 2020A Study on the Challenges of Using Robotics Simulators for Testingcited by 10
  33. 2022DefGraspSim: Physics-based simulation of grasp outcomes for 3D deformable objectscited by 10
  34. 2021Interpreting Contact Interactions to Overcome Failure in Robot Assembly Taskscited by 9
  35. 2020Dynamic Experience Replaycited by 7
  36. 2020Stability-Guaranteed Reinforcement Learning for Contact-rich Manipulationcited by 7
  37. 2021OSCAR: Data-Driven Operational Space Control for Adaptive and Robust Robot Manipulationcited by 7
  38. 2018A Dataset of Daily Interactive Manipulationcited by 6

50 most cited of 58 All 58 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2022: 4; 2023: 11; 2024: 12; 2025: 13; 2026: 9.

49 papers.

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  1. 2022ProcTHOR: Large-Scale Embodied AI Using Procedural Generationcited by 369
  2. 2023MimicGen: A Data Generation System for Scalable Robot Learning using Human Demonstrationscited by 308
  3. 2023Orbit: A Unified Simulation Framework for Interactive Robot Learning Environmentscited by 239
  4. 2023FurnitureBench: Reproducible Real-World Benchmark for Long-Horizon Complex Manipulationcited by 132
  5. 2025GraspVLA: a Grasping Foundation Model Pre-trained on Billion-scale Synthetic Action Datacited by 120
  6. 2024URDFormer: A Pipeline for Constructing Articulated Simulation Environments from Real-World Imagescited by 106
  7. 2024HumanoidBench: Simulated Humanoid Benchmark for Whole-Body Locomotion and Manipulationcited by 101
  8. 2025ForceVLA: Enhancing VLA Models with a Force-aware MoE for Contact-rich Manipulationcited by 87
  9. 2024From Imitation to Refinement -- Residual RL for Precise Assemblycited by 80
  10. 2024TRANSIC: Sim-to-Real Policy Transfer by Learning from Online Correctioncited by 50
  11. 2022Retrospectives on the Embodied AI Workshopcited by 46
  12. 2024Twisting Lids Off with Two Handscited by 36
37 more
  1. 2024JUICER: Data-Efficient Imitation Learning for Robotic Assemblycited by 36
  2. 2023MimicTouch: Leveraging Multi-modal Human Tactile Demonstrations for Contact-rich Manipulationcited by 30
  3. 2023DexPBT: Scaling up Dexterous Manipulation for Hand-Arm Systems with Population Based Trainingcited by 24
  4. 2023IKEA-Manual: Seeing Shape Assembly Step by Stepcited by 22
  5. 2024Local Policies Enable Zero-shot Long-horizon Manipulationcited by 21
  6. 2023ASAP: Automated Sequence Planning for Complex Robotic Assembly with Physical Feasibilitycited by 17
  7. 2023Transfer Learning in Robotics: An Upcoming Breakthrough? A Review of Promises and Challengescited by 17
  8. 2023Rearrangement Planning for General Part Assemblycited by 12
  9. 2025Two by Two: Learning Multi-Task Pairwise Objects Assembly for Generalizable Robot Manipulationcited by 12
  10. 2025AutoBio: A Simulation and Benchmark for Robotic Automation in Digital Biology Laboratorycited by 12
  11. 2024GenCHiP: Generating Robot Policy Code for High-Precision and Contact-Rich Manipulation Taskscited by 9
  12. 2026Self-Refining Vision Language Model for Robotic Failure Detection and Reasoningcited by 6
  13. 2023Multi-level Reasoning for Robotic Assembly: From Sequence Inference to Contact Selectioncited by 5
  14. 2024The Duality of Generative AI and Reinforcement Learning in Robotics: A Reviewcited by 5
  15. 2024Dexterous Legged Locomotion in Confined 3D Spaces with Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  16. 2022OpenD: A Benchmark for Language-Driven Door and Drawer Openingcited by 3
  17. 2025BiAssemble: Learning Collaborative Affordance for Bimanual Geometric Assemblycited by 3
  18. 2025Multimodal Diffusion Forcing for Forceful Manipulationcited by 3
  19. 2026Simulation Distillation: Pretraining World Models in Simulation for Rapid Real-World Adaptationcited by 3
  20. 2026Pipette: An Embodied Simulation Platform, Benchmark, and Data-Efficient Augmentation Framework for Wet-Lab Roboticscited by 3
  21. 2022Efficient Representations of Object Geometry for Reinforcement Learning of Interactive Grasping Policiescited by 2
  22. 2025Failure Forecasting Boosts Robustness of Sim2Real Rhythmic Insertion Policiescited by 2
  23. 2025CADKnitter: Compositional CAD Generation from Text and Geometry Guidancecited by 2
  24. 2025Leveraging Adaptive Group Negotiation for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Collaboration with Large Language Modelscited by 1
  25. 2026Interact3D: Compositional 3D Generation of Interactive Objectscited by 1
  26. 2023The Impact of Time Step Frequency on the Realism of Robotic Manipulation Simulation for Objects of Different Scalescited by 0
  27. 2024Auxiliary Reward Generation with Transition Distance Representation Learningcited by 0
  28. 2024On the role of Artificial Intelligence methods in modern force-controlled manufacturing robotic taskscited by 0
  29. 2025Watch Less, Feel More: Sim-to-Real RL for Generalizable Articulated Object Manipulation via Motion Adaptation and Impedance Controlcited by 0
  30. 2025EasyInsert: A Data-Efficient and Generalizable Insertion Policycited by 0
  31. 2025Deformable Cluster Manipulation via Whole-Arm Policy Learningcited by 0
  32. 2025The Role of Touch: Towards Optimal Tactile Sensing Distribution in Anthropomorphic Hands for Dexterous In-Hand Manipulationcited by 0
  33. 2026Symmetry-Aware Fusion of Vision and Tactile Sensing via Bilateral Force Priors for Robotic Manipulationcited by 0
  34. 2026Learning Hybrid-Control Policies for High-Precision In-Contact Manipulation Under Uncertaintycited by 0
  35. 2026Particle-Based Conformal Prediction for Contact-Aware Uncertainty Calibration in Stratified Configuration Spacescited by 0
  36. 2026Proprioception-Anchored Cross-Modal Pretraining for Zero-Shot Sim-to-Real Contact-Rich Assemblycited by 0
  37. 2026Harnessing human expertise for high-precision robotic assembly in industrialized construction: A sample-efficient installer-in-the-loop interactive reinforcement learning frameworkcited by 0