# Learning Force Control for Legged Manipulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.01402 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.01402/

## Key facts

- Cited by 21 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 22 of its 46 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 May 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [Isaac Gym: High Performance GPU-Based Physics Simulation For Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10470/) (2021)
- [Learning to Walk in Minutes Using Massively Parallel Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.11978/) (2021)
- [RMA: Rapid Motor Adaptation for Legged Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.04034/) (2021)
- [Learning agile and dynamic motor skills for legged robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.08652/) (2019)
- [Learning by Cheating](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.12294/) (2019)
- [Rapid Locomotion via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.02824/) (2022)
- [A System for General In-Hand Object Re-Orientation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.03043/) (2021)
- [Extreme Parkour with Legged Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14341/) (2023)
- [ANYmal Parkour: Learning Agile Navigation for Quadrupedal Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14874/) (2023)
- [Robot Parkour Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.05665/) (2023)
- [Walk These Ways: Tuning Robot Control for Generalization with Multiplicity of Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.03238/) (2022)
- [Learning Agile Soccer Skills for a Bipedal Robot with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13653/) (2023)
- [Deep Whole-Body Control: Learning a Unified Policy for Manipulation and Locomotion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.10044/) (2022)
- [Visual Dexterity: In-Hand Reorientation of Novel and Complex Object Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11744/) (2022)
- [Concurrent Training of a Control Policy and a State Estimator for Dynamic and Robust Legged Locomotion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05481/) (2022)
- [DribbleBot: Dynamic Legged Manipulation in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01159/) (2023)
- [A Unified MPC Framework for Whole-Body Dynamic Locomotion and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00946/) (2021)
- [Versatile Multi-Contact Planning and Control for Legged Loco-Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09179/) (2023)
- [Learning Whole-body Manipulation for Quadrupedal Robot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16820/) (2023)
- [Learning Arm-Assisted Fall Damage Reduction and Recovery for Legged Mobile Manipulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05486/) (2023)
- [A Whole-Body Controller Based on a Simplified Template for Rendering Impedances in Quadruped Manipulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.00810/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [Mimicking-Bench: A Benchmark for Generalizable Humanoid-Scene Interaction Learning via Human Mimicking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17730/) (2024)
- [SoftMimic: Learning Compliant Whole-body Control from Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17792/) (2025)
- [Bridging the Sim-to-Real Gap for Athletic Loco-Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10894/) (2025)
- [FACET: Force-Adaptive Control via Impedance Reference Tracking for Legged Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.06883/) (2025)
- [Learning Whole-Body Loco-Manipulation for Omni-Directional Task Space Pose Tracking with a Wheeled-Quadrupedal-Manipulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03012/) (2024)
- [Helpful DoggyBot: Open-World Object Fetching using Legged Robots and Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.00231/) (2024)
- [Whole-body End-Effector Pose Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.16048/) (2024)
- [WildLMa: Long Horizon Loco-Manipulation in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15131/) (2024)
- [Bipedalism for Quadrupedal Robots: Versatile Loco-Manipulation through Risk-Adaptive Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20382/) (2025)
- [FALCON: Actively Decoupled Visuomotor Policies for Loco-Manipulation with Foundation-Model-Based Coordination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.04381/) (2025)
- [Closing the Reality Gap: Zero-Shot Sim-to-Real Deployment for Dexterous Force-Based Grasping and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.02778/) (2026)
- [QuadWBG: Generalizable Quadrupedal Whole-Body Grasping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.06782/) (2024)
- [HAFO: A Force-Adaptive Control Framework for Humanoid Robots in Intense Interaction Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20275/) (2025)
- [Watch Less, Feel More: Sim-to-Real RL for Generalizable Articulated Object Manipulation via Motion Adaptation and Impedance Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14457/) (2025)
- [Physically Consistent Humanoid Loco-Manipulation using Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16843/) (2025)
- [Scoop-and-Toss: Dynamic Object Collection for Quadrupedal Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09406/) (2025)
- [Fauna Sprout: A lightweight, approachable, developer-ready humanoid robot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.18963/) (2026)
- [Learning Dynamic Pick-and-Place for a Legged Manipulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15713/) (2026)
- [IMPACT: Learning Internal-Model Predictive Control for Forceful Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.10818/) (2026)
- [Embodied Multimodal Grounding for Open-Vocabulary Mobile Manipulation via Semantic 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10756/) (2026)
- [Force-Aware Reinforcement Learning with Hybrid Sensorless Force Estimation for Wheeled-Legged Loco-Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.13779/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Controlling contact forces during interactions is critical for locomotion and manipulation tasks. While sim-to-real reinforcement learning (RL) has succeeded in many contact-rich problems, current RL methods achieve forceful interactions implicitly without explicitly regulating forces. We propose a method for training RL policies for direct force control without requiring access to force sensing. We showcase our method on a whole-body control platform of a quadruped robot with an arm. Such force control enables us to perform gravity compensation and impedance control, unlocking compliant whole-body manipulation. The learned whole-body controller with variable compliance makes it intuitive for humans to teleoperate the robot by only commanding the manipulator, and the robot's body adjusts automatically to achieve the desired position and force. Consequently, a human teleoperator can easily demonstrate a wide variety of loco-manipulation tasks. To the best of our knowledge, we provide the first deployment of learned whole-body force control in legged manipulators, paving the way for more versatile and adaptable legged robots.