# Combined Physics and Event Camera Simulator for Slip Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04838 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04838/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 16 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Event-based Vision: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08405/) (2019)
- [EV-FlowNet: Self-Supervised Optical Flow Estimation for Event-based Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.06898/) (2018)
- [Secrets of Event-Based Optical Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10022/) (2022)
- [Event-Driven Visual-Tactile Sensing and Learning for Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.07083/) (2020)
- [Event-based Camera Pose Tracking using a Generative Event Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.01972/) (2015)
- [Evetac: An Event-based Optical Tactile Sensor for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.01236/) (2023)
- [Neuromorphic Event-Based Slip Detection and suppression in Robotic Grasping and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07386/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [E-VLA: Event-Augmented Vision-Language-Action Model for Dark and Blurred Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04834/) (2026)
- [VIRTUS-FPP: Virtual Sensor Modeling for Fringe Projection Profilometry in NVIDIA Isaac Sim](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22685/) (2025)
- [FracEvent: Event-Camera Simulation via Fractional-Relaxation Pixel Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.26636/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Robot manipulation is a common task in fields like industrial manufacturing. Detecting when objects slip from a robot's grasp is crucial for safe and reliable operation. Event cameras, which register pixel-level brightness changes at high temporal resolution (called ``events''), offer an elegant feature when mounted on a robot's end effector: since they only detect motion relative to their viewpoint, a properly grasped object produces no events, while a slipping object immediately triggers them. To research this feature, representative datasets are essential, both for analytic approaches and for training machine learning models. The majority of current research on slip detection with event-based data is done on real-world scenarios and manual data collection, as well as additional setups for data labeling. This can result in a significant increase in the time required for data collection, a lack of flexibility in scene setups, and a high level of complexity in the repetition of experiments. This paper presents a simulation pipeline for generating slip data using the described camera-gripper configuration in a robot arm, and demonstrates its effectiveness through initial data-driven experiments. The use of a simulator, once it is set up, has the potential to reduce the time spent on data collection, provide the ability to alter the setup at any time, simplify the process of repetition and the generation of arbitrarily large data sets. Two distinct datasets were created and validated through visual inspection and artificial neural networks (ANNs). Visual inspection confirmed photorealistic frame generation and accurate slip modeling, while three ANNs trained on this data achieved high validation accuracy and demonstrated good generalization capabilities on a separate test set, along with initial applicability to real-world data. Project page: https://github.com/tub-rip/event_slip