# Object-Pose Estimation With Neural Population Codes

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.13403 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13403/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 16 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Feb 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [A ConvNet for the 2020s](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03545/) (2022)
- [On the Continuity of Rotation Representations in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07035/) (2018)
- [FoundationPose: Unified 6D Pose Estimation and Tracking of Novel Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08344/) (2023)
- [T-LESS: An RGB-D Dataset for 6D Pose Estimation of Texture-less Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.05498/) (2017)
- [BOP Challenge 2020 on 6D Object Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.07378/) (2020)
- [Explaining the Ambiguity of Object Detection and 6D Pose From Visual Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00287/) (2018)
- [Implicit-PDF: Non-Parametric Representation of Probability Distributions on the Rotation Manifold](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05965/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning-Based Object Pose Estimation: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.07801/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Robotic assembly tasks require object-pose estimation, particularly for tasks that avoid costly mechanical constraints. Object symmetry complicates the direct mapping of sensory input to object rotation, as the rotation becomes ambiguous and lacks a unique training target. Some proposed solutions involve evaluating multiple pose hypotheses against the input or predicting a probability distribution, but these approaches suffer from significant computational overhead. Here, we show that representing object rotation with a neural population code overcomes these limitations, enabling a direct mapping to rotation and end-to-end learning. As a result, population codes facilitate fast and accurate pose estimation. On the T-LESS dataset, we achieve inference in 3.2 milliseconds on an Apple M1 CPU and a Maximum Symmetry-Aware Surface Distance accuracy of 84.7% using only gray-scale image input, compared to 69.7% accuracy when directly mapping to pose.