# DexDiffuser: Generating Dexterous Grasps with Diffusion Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.02989 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02989/

## Key facts

- Cited by 48 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for robotics, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 36 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Feb 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion and flow policies for robotics](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-and-flow-policies-for-robotics/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [PointNet++: Deep Hierarchical Feature Learning on Point Sets in a Metric Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02413/) (2017)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [On the Continuity of Rotation Representations in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07035/) (2018)
- [Cascaded Diffusion Models for High Fidelity Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15282/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Methods and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.00796/) (2022)
- [Isaac Gym: High Performance GPU-Based Physics Simulation For Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10470/) (2021)
- [6-DOF GraspNet: Variational Grasp Generation for Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.10520/) (2019)
- [Diffusion-based Generation, Optimization, and Planning in 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.06015/) (2023)
- [Motion Planning Diffusion: Learning and Planning of Robot Motions with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.01557/) (2023)
- [DexGraspNet: A Large-Scale Robotic Dexterous Grasp Dataset for General Objects Based on Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02697/) (2022)
- [SE(3)-DiffusionFields: Learning smooth cost functions for joint grasp and motion optimization through diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.03855/) (2022)
- [UniDexGrasp: Universal Robotic Dexterous Grasping via Learning Diverse Proposal Generation and Goal-Conditioned Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.00938/) (2023)
- [UniDexGrasp++: Improving Dexterous Grasping Policy Learning via Geometry-aware Curriculum and Iterative Generalist-Specialist Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.00464/) (2023)
- [Efficient Learning on Point Clouds with Basis Point Sets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.09186/) (2019)
- [Learning Dexterous Grasping with Object-Centric Visual Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.01439/) (2020)
- [DexPoint: Generalizable Point Cloud Reinforcement Learning for Sim-to-Real Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09423/) (2022)
- [Deep Learning Approaches to Grasp Synthesis: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02556/) (2022)
- [6-DOF Grasping for Target-driven Object Manipulation in Clutter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.03628/) (2019)
- [EGAD! an Evolved Grasping Analysis Dataset for diversity and reproducibility in robotic manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01314/) (2020)
- [GenDexGrasp: Generalizable Dexterous Grasping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00722/) (2022)
- [Diffusion-EDFs: Bi-equivariant Denoising Generative Modeling on SE(3) for Visual Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.02685/) (2023)
- [StructDiffusion: Language-Guided Creation of Physically-Valid Structures using Unseen Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.04604/) (2022)
- [PlayFusion: Skill Acquisition via Diffusion from Language-Annotated Play](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04549/) (2023)
- [UGG: Unified Generative Grasping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16917/) (2023)
- [Learning Continuous 3D Reconstructions for Geometrically Aware Grasping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.00983/) (2019)
- [DDGC: Generative Deep Dexterous Grasping in Clutter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.04783/) (2021)
- [Shelving, Stacking, Hanging: Relational Pose Diffusion for Multi-modal Rearrangement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04751/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 48)

- [DiffusionDrive: Truncated Diffusion Model for End-to-End Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15139/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.08438/) (2025)
- [Motion Planning Diffusion: Learning and Adapting Robot Motion Planning with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19948/) (2024)
- [GraspGen: A Diffusion-based Framework for 6-DOF Grasping with On-Generator Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.13097/) (2025)
- [M2Diffuser: Diffusion-based Trajectory Optimization for Mobile Manipulation in 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.11402/) (2024)
- [DexGrasp Anything: Towards Universal Robotic Dexterous Grasping with Physics Awareness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.08257/) (2025)
- [Dex1B: Learning with 1B Demonstrations for Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.17198/) (2025)
- [Dexonomy: Synthesizing All Dexterous Grasp Types in a Grasp Taxonomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18829/) (2025)
- [DexHandDiff: Interaction-aware Diffusion Planning for Adaptive Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.18562/) (2024)
- [Language-Guided Object-Centric Diffusion Policy for Generalizable and Collision-Aware Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.00451/) (2024)
- [GraspDiffusion: Synthesizing Realistic Whole-body Hand-Object Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13911/) (2024)
- [GAGrasp: Geometric Algebra Diffusion for Dexterous Grasping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04123/) (2025)
- [Real-Time Iteration Scheme for Diffusion Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05396/) (2025)
- [Text2Grasp: Grasp synthesis by text prompts of object grasping parts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15189/) (2024)
- [EvolvingGrasp: Evolutionary Grasp Generation via Efficient Preference Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14329/) (2025)
- [G-DexGrasp: Generalizable Dexterous Grasping Synthesis Via Part-Aware Prior Retrieval and Prior-Assisted Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19457/) (2025)
- [Action-Geometry Prediction with 3D Geometric Prior for Bimanual Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.23814/) (2026)
- [Dexterous Functional Pre-Grasp Manipulation with Diffusion Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12421/) (2024)
- [Joint Diffusion for Universal Hand-Object Grasp Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04560/) (2024)
- [ManiDP: Manipulability-Aware Diffusion Policy for Posture-Dependent Bimanual Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23016/) (2025)
- [DextER: Language-driven Dexterous Grasp Generation with Embodied Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.16046/) (2026)
- [FFHFlow: Diverse and Uncertainty-Aware Dexterous Grasp Generation via Flow Variational Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15161/) (2024)
- [Bimanual Grasp Synthesis for Dexterous Robot Hands](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15903/) (2024)
- [Grasping a Handful: Sequential Multi-Object Dexterous Grasp Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.22370/) (2025)
- [Contact Map Transfer with Conditional Diffusion Model for Generalizable Dexterous Grasp Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01276/) (2025)
- [HeRO: Hierarchical 3D Semantic Representation for Pose-aware Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.18817/) (2026)
- [FunHOI: Annotation-Free 3D Hand-Object Interaction Generation via Functional Text Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.20805/) (2025)
- [Grasp2Grasp: Vision-Based Dexterous Grasp Translation via Schr"odinger Bridges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02489/) (2025)
- [Lightning Grasp: High Performance Procedural Grasp Synthesis with Contact Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.07418/) (2025)
- [OmniDexVLG: Learning Dexterous Grasp Generation from Vision Language Model-Guided Grasp Semantics, Taxonomy and Functional Affordance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.03874/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce DexDiffuser, a novel dexterous grasping method that generates, evaluates, and refines grasps on partial object point clouds. DexDiffuser includes the conditional diffusion-based grasp sampler DexSampler and the dexterous grasp evaluator DexEvaluator. DexSampler generates high-quality grasps conditioned on object point clouds by iterative denoising of randomly sampled grasps. We also introduce two grasp refinement strategies: Evaluator-Guided Diffusion (EGD) and Evaluator-based Sampling Refinement (ESR). The experiment results demonstrate that DexDiffuser consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art multi-finger grasp generation method FFHNet with an, on average, 9.12% and 19.44% higher grasp success rate in simulation and real robot experiments, respectively. Supplementary materials are available at https://yulihn.github.io/DexDiffuser_page/