# Learning human-to-robot handovers through 3D scene reconstruction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.08726 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.08726/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 44 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 44)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Soft Actor-Critic: Off-Policy Maximum Entropy Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Stochastic Actor](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.01290/) (2018)
- [Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03476/) (2016)
- [Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06907/) (2017)
- [CyCADA: Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03213/) (2017)
- [Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.03575/) (2025)
- [DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12945/) (2024)
- [QT-Opt: Scalable Deep Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.10293/) (2018)
- [Sim-to-Real Transfer of Robotic Control with Dynamics Randomization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.06537/) (2017)
- [Learning Hand-Eye Coordination for Robotic Grasping with Deep Learning and Large-Scale Data Collection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.02199/) (2016)
- [Fast Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12156/) (2023)
- [Understanding Human Hands in Contact at Internet Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.06669/) (2020)
- [FSGS: Real-Time Few-shot View Synthesis using Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00451/) (2023)
- [DNGaussian: Optimizing Sparse-View 3D Gaussian Radiance Fields with Global-Local Depth Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06912/) (2024)
- [6-DOF GraspNet: Variational Grasp Generation for Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.10520/) (2019)
- [Closing the Sim-to-Real Loop: Adapting Simulation Randomization with Real World Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.05687/) (2018)
- [Progressive Feature Alignment for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.08585/) (2018)
- [Sim-to-Real via Sim-to-Sim: Data-efficient Robotic Grasping via Randomized-to-Canonical Adaptation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07252/) (2018)
- [FrankMocap: A Monocular 3D Whole-Body Pose Estimation System via Regression and Integration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.06428/) (2021)
- [What Matters In On-Policy Reinforcement Learning? A Large-Scale Empirical Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05990/) (2020)
- [ManiGaussian: Dynamic Gaussian Splatting for Multi-task Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08321/) (2024)
- [Learning to See by Moving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.01596/) (2015)
- [Sim-to-Real Robot Learning from Pixels with Progressive Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.04286/) (2016)
- [RL-CycleGAN: Reinforcement Learning Aware Simulation-To-Real](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09001/) (2020)
- [CoherentGS: Sparse Novel View Synthesis with Coherent 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.19495/) (2024)
- [Splat-Nav: Safe Real-Time Robot Navigation in Gaussian Splatting Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02751/) (2024)
- [Deep Imitation Learning for Bimanual Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.05134/) (2020)
- [Cross-Domain Imitation Learning via Optimal Transport](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03684/) (2021)
- [NeRF2Real: Sim2real Transfer of Vision-guided Bipedal Motion Skills using Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.04932/) (2022)
- [GraspSplats: Efficient Manipulation with 3D Feature Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02084/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Toward Human-Robot Teaming: Learning Handover Behaviors from 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.09855/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Learning robot manipulation policies from raw, real-world image data requires a large number of robot-action trials in the physical environment. Although training using simulations offers a cost-effective alternative, the visual domain gap between simulation and robot workspace remains a major limitation. Gaussian Splatting visual reconstruction methods have recently provided new directions for robot manipulation by generating realistic environments. In this paper, we propose the first method for learning supervised-based robot handovers solely from RGB images without the need of real-robot training or real-robot data collection. The proposed policy learner, Human-to-Robot Handover using Sparse-View Gaussian Splatting (H2RH-SGS), leverages sparse-view Gaussian Splatting reconstruction of human-to-robot handover scenes to generate robot demonstrations containing image-action pairs captured with a camera mounted on the robot gripper. As a result, the simulated camera pose changes in the reconstructed scene can be directly translated into gripper pose changes. We train a robot policy on demonstrations collected with 16 household objects and em directly deploy this policy in the real environment. Experiments in both Gaussian Splatting reconstructed scene and real-world human-to-robot handover experiments demonstrate that H2RH-SGS serves as a new and effective representation for the human-to-robot handover task.