# Composable Part-Based Manipulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.05876 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.05876/

## Key facts

- Cited by 17 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 53 of its 61 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 May 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 53)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Point Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00931/) (2020)
- [Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.09991/) (2022)
- [PCT: Point cloud transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09688/) (2020)
- [Compositional Visual Generation with Composable Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.01714/) (2022)
- [CLIPort: What and Where Pathways for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.12098/) (2021)
- [Fast Sampling of Diffusion Models with Exponential Integrator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.13902/) (2022)
- [PartNet: A Large-scale Benchmark for Fine-grained and Hierarchical Part-level 3D Object Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.02713/) (2018)
- [Is Conditional Generative Modeling all you need for Decision-Making?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15657/) (2022)
- [Integrated Task and Motion Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01083/) (2020)
- [Diffusion-based Generation, Optimization, and Planning in 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.06015/) (2023)
- [Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Compositional Generation with Energy-Based Diffusion Models and MCMC](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.11552/) (2023)
- [Contact-GraspNet: Efficient 6-DoF Grasp Generation in Cluttered Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14127/) (2021)
- [Neural Descriptor Fields: SE(3)-Equivariant Object Representations for Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05124/) (2021)
- [Where2Act: From Pixels to Actions for Articulated 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02692/) (2021)
- [Scaling Robot Learning with Semantically Imagined Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.11550/) (2023)
- [kPAM: KeyPoint Affordances for Category-Level Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.06684/) (2019)
- [GAPartNet: Cross-Category Domain-Generalizable Object Perception and Manipulation via Generalizable and Actionable Parts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05272/) (2022)
- [VIOLA: Imitation Learning for Vision-Based Manipulation with Object Proposal Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11339/) (2022)
- [AffordanceNet: An End-to-End Deep Learning Approach for Object Affordance Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.07326/) (2017)
- [SE(3)-DiffusionFields: Learning smooth cost functions for joint grasp and motion optimization through diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.03855/) (2022)
- [PartSLIP: Low-Shot Part Segmentation for 3D Point Clouds via Pretrained Image-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.01558/) (2022)
- [ACRONYM: A Large-Scale Grasp Dataset Based on Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.09584/) (2020)
- [Collaborative Diffusion for Multi-Modal Face Generation and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.10530/) (2023)
- [DALL-E-Bot: Introducing Web-Scale Diffusion Models to Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02438/) (2022)
- [Grounding Language with Visual Affordances over Unstructured Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01911/) (2022)
- [3D AffordanceNet: A Benchmark for Visual Object Affordance Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16397/) (2021)
- [VAT-Mart: Learning Visual Action Trajectory Proposals for Manipulating 3D ARTiculated Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14440/) (2021)
- [Keypoints into the Future: Self-Supervised Correspondence in Model-Based Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.05085/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Robot See Robot Do: Imitating Articulated Object Manipulation with Monocular 4D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18121/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.08438/) (2025)
- [Deep Generative Models in Robotics: A Survey on Learning from Multimodal Demonstrations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04380/) (2024)
- [Keypoint Abstraction using Large Models for Object-Relative Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23254/) (2024)
- [3x2: 3D Object Part Segmentation by 2D Semantic Correspondences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.09648/) (2024)
- [One-Shot Manipulation Strategy Learning by Making Contact Analogies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.09627/) (2024)
- [MoMaGen: Generating Demonstrations under Soft and Hard Constraints for Multi-Step Bimanual Mobile Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18316/) (2025)
- [Mind-the-Glitch: Visual Correspondence for Detecting Inconsistencies in Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.21989/) (2025)
- [GAPartManip: A Large-scale Part-centric Dataset for Material-Agnostic Articulated Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.18276/) (2024)
- [PARTONOMY: Large Multimodal Models with Part-Level Visual Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20759/) (2025)
- [PartInstruct: Part-level Instruction Following for Fine-grained Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21652/) (2025)
- [Composing Diffusion Policies for Few-shot Learning of Movement Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.17479/) (2024)
- [Factorizing Diffusion Policies for Observation Modality Prioritization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.16830/) (2025)
- [Learning to Grasp Anything by Playing with Random Toys](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.12866/) (2025)
- [Hierarchical Transformers for Unsupervised 3D Shape Abstraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.27088/) (2025)
- [SegGraph: Leveraging Graphs of SAM Segments for Few-Shot 3D Part Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16143/) (2025)
- [GROW2: Grounding Which and Where for Robot Tool Use](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.30632/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we propose composable part-based manipulation (CPM), a novel approach that leverages object-part decomposition and part-part correspondences to improve learning and generalization of robotic manipulation skills. By considering the functional correspondences between object parts, we conceptualize functional actions, such as pouring and constrained placing, as combinations of different correspondence constraints. CPM comprises a collection of composable diffusion models, where each model captures a different inter-object correspondence. These diffusion models can generate parameters for manipulation skills based on the specific object parts. Leveraging part-based correspondences coupled with the task decomposition into distinct constraints enables strong generalization to novel objects and object categories. We validate our approach in both simulated and real-world scenarios, demonstrating its effectiveness in achieving robust and generalized manipulation capabilities.
