# Towards Robotic Tree Manipulation: Leveraging Graph Representations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.07479 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07479/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Nov 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Find the Fruit: Zero-Shot Sim2Real RL for Occlusion-Aware Plant Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16547/) (2025)
- [RoMu4o: A Robotic Manipulation Unit For Orchard Operations Automating Proximal Hyperspectral Leaf Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.10621/) (2025)
- [Deformable Cluster Manipulation via Whole-Arm Policy Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.17085/) (2025)
- [Planning-Query-Guided Model Generation for Model-Based Deformable Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19199/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

There is growing interest in automating agricultural tasks that require intricate and precise interaction with specialty crops, such as trees and vines. However, developing robotic solutions for crop manipulation remains a difficult challenge due to complexities involved in modeling their deformable behavior. In this study, we present a framework for learning the deformation behavior of tree-like crops under contact interaction. Our proposed method involves encoding the state of a spring-damper modeled tree crop as a graph. This representation allows us to employ graph networks to learn both a forward model for predicting resulting deformations, and a contact policy for inferring actions to manipulate tree crops. We conduct a comprehensive set of experiments in a simulated environment and demonstrate generalizability of our method on previously unseen trees. Videos can be found on the project website: https://kantor-lab.github.io/tree_gnn