mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

SpeedFolding: Learning Efficient Bimanual Folding of Garments

arXiv 2208.10552 ↗First posted 22 Aug 2022cs.RO cs.AIcited by 52

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Abstract (arXiv)

Folding garments reliably and efficiently is a long standing challenge in robotic manipulation due to the complex dynamics and high dimensional configuration space of garments. An intuitive approach is to initially manipulate the garment to a canonical smooth configuration before folding. In this work, we develop SpeedFolding, a reliable and efficient bimanual system, which given user-defined instructions as folding lines, manipulates an initially crumpled garment to (1) a smoothed and (2) a folded configuration. Our primary contribution is a novel neural network architecture that is able to predict pairs of gripper poses to parameterize a diverse set of bimanual action primitives. After learning from 4300 human-annotated and self-supervised actions, the robot is able to fold garments from a random initial configuration in under 120s on average with a success rate of 93%. Real-world experiments show that the system is able to generalize to unseen garments of different color, shape, and stiffness. While prior work achieved 3-6 Folds Per Hour (FPH), SpeedFolding achieves 30-40 FPH.

Key facts. Cited by 52 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 18 of its 31 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Aug 2022.

Builds on

18 of 31 references.

References · 18

  1. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,713
  2. 2016Aggregated Residual Transformations for Deep Neural Networkscited by 2,546
  3. 2020Transporter Networks: Rearranging the Visual World for Robotic Manipulationcited by 344
  4. 2018Learning Synergies between Pushing and Grasping with Self-supervised Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 128
  5. 2021FlingBot: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Dynamic Manipulation for Cloth Unfoldingcited by 81
  6. 2020Learning to Rearrange Deformable Cables, Fabrics, and Bags with Goal-Conditioned Transporter Networkscited by 78
  7. 2021FabricFlowNet: Bimanual Cloth Manipulation with a Flow-based Policycited by 54
  8. 2019Deep Imitation Learning of Sequential Fabric Smoothing From an Algorithmic Supervisorcited by 44
  9. 2021Challenges and Outlook in Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objectscited by 43
  10. 2020VisuoSpatial Foresight for Multi-Step, Multi-Task Fabric Manipulationcited by 40
  11. 2020Learning Arbitrary-Goal Fabric Folding with One Hour of Real Robot Experiencecited by 24
  12. 2020Self-supervised Learning for Precise Pick-and-place without Object Modelcited by 21
6 more
  1. 2020Untangling Dense Knots by Learning Task-Relevant Keypointscited by 21
  2. 2019Robot Learning of Shifting Objects for Grasping in Cluttered Environmentscited by 13
  3. 2022Efficiently Learning Single-Arm Fling Motions to Smooth Garmentscited by 8
  4. 2017A Certified-Complete Bimanual Manipulation Plannercited by 6
  5. 2018Robotic Sewing and Knot Tying for Personalized Stent Graft Manufacturingcited by 1
  6. 2021A Dual-arm Robot that Autonomously Lifts Up and Tumbles Heavy Plates Using Crane Pulley Blockscited by 1

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2022: 3; 2023: 6; 2024: 19; 2025: 17; 2026: 7.

52 papers.

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  1. 2024Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotics: A Survey of Real-World Successescited by 176
  2. 2023Stabilize to Act: Learning to Coordinate for Bimanual Manipulationcited by 39
  3. 2024Deep Generative Models in Robotics: A Survey on Learning from Multimodal Demonstrationscited by 35
  4. 2023ClothesNet: An Information-Rich 3D Garment Model Repository with Simulated Clothes Environmentcited by 23
  5. 2024UniGarmentManip: A Unified Framework for Category-Level Garment Manipulation via Dense Visual Correspondencecited by 23
  6. 2024GarmentLab: A Unified Simulation and Benchmark for Garment Manipulationcited by 22
  7. 2024Don't Start from Scratch: Behavioral Refinement via Interpolant-based Policy Diffusioncited by 21
  8. 2024VoxAct-B: Voxel-Based Acting and Stabilizing Policy for Bimanual Manipulationcited by 21
  9. 2024ScrewMimic: Bimanual Imitation from Human Videos with Screw Space Projectioncited by 19
  10. 2025Diffusion Dynamics Models with Generative State Estimation for Cloth Manipulationcited by 19
  11. 2023GarmentTracking: Category-Level Garment Pose Trackingcited by 16
  12. 2024AnyBimanual: Transferring Unimanual Policy for General Bimanual Manipulationcited by 16
38 more
  1. 2023UniFolding: Towards Sample-efficient, Scalable, and Generalizable Robotic Garment Foldingcited by 13
  2. 2025IMLE Policy: Fast and Sample Efficient Visuomotor Policy Learning via Implicit Maximum Likelihood Estimationcited by 13
  3. 2025TwinVLA: Data-Efficient Bimanual Manipulation with Twin Single-Arm Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 13
  4. 2024Learning Keypoints for Robotic Cloth Manipulation using Synthetic Datacited by 11
  5. 2022EDO-Net: Learning Elastic Properties of Deformable Objects from Graph Dynamicscited by 10
  6. 2025GarmentPile: Point-Level Visual Affordance Guided Retrieval and Adaptation for Cluttered Garments Manipulationcited by 9
  7. 2025Cloth-Splatting: 3D Cloth State Estimation from RGB Supervisioncited by 8
  8. 2022Learning Fabric Manipulation in the Real World with Human Videoscited by 7
  9. 2024DeformPAM: Data-Efficient Learning for Long-horizon Deformable Object Manipulation via Preference-based Action Alignmentcited by 7
  10. 2025LLM+MAP: Bimanual Robot Task Planning using Large Language Models and Planning Domain Definition Languagecited by 7
  11. 2022SGTM 2.0: Autonomously Untangling Long Cables using Interactive Perceptioncited by 5
  12. 2023QDP: Learning to Sequentially Optimise Quasi-Static and Dynamic Manipulation Primitives for Robotic Cloth Manipulationcited by 5
  13. 2024LeTO: Learning Constrained Visuomotor Policy with Differentiable Trajectory Optimizationcited by 5
  14. 2024TieBot: Learning to Knot a Tie from Visual Demonstration through a Real-to-Sim-to-Real Approachcited by 5
  15. 2025D-CODA: Diffusion for Coordinated Dual-Arm Data Augmentationcited by 5
  16. 2025Experiences from Benchmarking Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 5
  17. 2026SkillVLA: Tackling Combinatorial Diversity in Dual-Arm Manipulation via Skill Reusecited by 5
  18. 2023IIFL: Implicit Interactive Fleet Learning from Heterogeneous Human Supervisorscited by 4
  19. 2024PokeFlex: A Real-World Dataset of Volumetric Deformable Objects for Roboticscited by 4
  20. 2025BiFold: Bimanual Cloth Folding with Language Guidancecited by 4
  21. 2025Task-Oriented 6-DoF Grasp Pose Detection in Clutterscited by 4
  22. 2024DOFS: A Real-world 3D Deformable Object Dataset with Full Spatial Information for Dynamics Model Learningcited by 3
  23. 2025Robot Deformable Object Manipulation via NMPC-generated Demonstrations in Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 3
  24. 2025One-Shot Affordance Grounding of Deformable Objects in Egocentric Organizing Scenescited by 3
  25. 2025ROPA: Synthetic Robot Pose Generation for RGB-D Bimanual Data Augmentationcited by 3
  26. 2026Failing Forward: Adaptive Failure-Informed Learning for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 3
  27. 2024ClothPPO: A Proximal Policy Optimization Enhancing Framework for Robotic Cloth Manipulation with Observation-Aligned Action Spacescited by 2
  28. 2024Automating Deformable Gasket Assemblycited by 1
  29. 2024SKT: Integrating State-Aware Keypoint Trajectories with Vision-Language Models for Robotic Garment Manipulationcited by 1
  30. 2024Flat'n'Fold: A Diverse Multi-Modal Dataset for Garment Perception and Manipulationcited by 1
  31. 2025FoldNet: Learning Generalizable Closed-Loop Policy for Garment Folding via Keypoint-Driven Asset and Demonstration Synthesiscited by 1
  32. 2025CLASP: General-Purpose Clothes Manipulation with Semantic Keypointscited by 1
  33. 2026PRISM: Performer RS-IMLE for Single-pass Multisensory Imitation Learningcited by 1
  34. 2026GarmentPile++: Affordance-Driven Cluttered Garments Retrieval with Vision-Language Reasoningcited by 1
  35. 2024AsymDex: Asymmetry and Relative Coordinates for RL-based Bimanual Dexteritycited by 0
  36. 2025SpikePingpong: Spike Vision-based Fast-Slow Pingpong Robot Systemcited by 0
  37. 2025FCBV-Net: Category-Level Robotic Garment Smoothing via Feature-Conditioned Bimanual Value Predictioncited by 0
  38. 2026Referring-Aware Visuomotor Policy Learning for Closed-Loop Manipulationcited by 0

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