# Yolo-Key-6D: Single Stage Monocular 6D Pose Estimation with Keypoint Enhancements

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.03879 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.03879/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 28 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [On the Continuity of Rotation Representations in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07035/) (2018)
- [Accelerating 3D Deep Learning with PyTorch3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08501/) (2020)
- [PoseCNN: A Convolutional Neural Network for 6D Object Pose Estimation in Cluttered Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00199/) (2017)
- [PVNet: Pixel-wise Voting Network for 6DoF Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.11788/) (2018)
- [INeRF: Inverting Neural Radiance Fields for Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.05877/) (2020)
- [CosyPose: Consistent multi-view multi-object 6D pose estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.08465/) (2020)
- [DeepIM: Deep Iterative Matching for 6D Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00175/) (2018)
- [SSD-6D: Making RGB-based 3D detection and 6D pose estimation great again](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10006/) (2017)
- [BB8: A Scalable, Accurate, Robust to Partial Occlusion Method for Predicting the 3D Poses of Challenging Objects without Using Depth](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.10896/) (2017)
- [Real-Time Seamless Single Shot 6D Object Pose Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.08848/) (2017)
- [MegaPose: 6D Pose Estimation of Novel Objects via Render & Compare](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06870/) (2022)
- [HybridPose: 6D Object Pose Estimation under Hybrid Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01869/) (2020)
- [SO-Pose: Exploiting Self-Occlusion for Direct 6D Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08367/) (2021)
- [EPro-PnP: Generalized End-to-End Probabilistic Perspective-n-Points for Monocular Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12787/) (2023)
- [6D Rotation Representation For Unconstrained Head Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.12555/) (2022)
- [RePOSE: Fast 6D Object Pose Refinement via Deep Texture Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00633/) (2021)
- [Learning with 3D rotations, a hitchhiker's guide to SO(3)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11735/) (2024)
- [RNNPose: Recurrent 6-DoF Object Pose Refinement with Robust Correspondence Field Estimation and Pose Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12870/) (2022)
- [DPODv2: Dense Correspondence-Based 6 DoF Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02805/) (2022)
- [Real-time Perception meets Reactive Motion Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03512/) (2017)
- [POPE: 6-DoF Promptable Pose Estimation of Any Object, in Any Scene, with One Reference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15727/) (2023)
- [6DGS: 6D Pose Estimation from a Single Image and a 3D Gaussian Splatting Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15484/) (2024)
- [MRC-Net: 6-DoF Pose Estimation with MultiScale Residual Correlation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08019/) (2024)
- [Pseudo Flow Consistency for Self-Supervised 6D Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10016/) (2023)
- [Minimizing the Motion-to-Photon-delay (MPD) in Virtual Reality Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10408/) (2023)
- [FocalPose++: Focal Length and Object Pose Estimation via Render and Compare](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02985/) (2023)
- [Advancing 6-DoF Instrument Pose Estimation in Variable X-Ray Imaging Geometries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11677/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Estimating the 6D pose of objects from a single RGB image is a critical task for robotics and extended reality applications. However, state-of-the-art multi stage methods often suffer from high latency, making them unsuitable for real time use. In this paper, we present Yolo-Key-6D, a novel single stage, end-to-end framework for monocular 6D pose estimation designed for both speed and accuracy. Our approach enhances a YOLO based architecture by integrating an auxiliary head that regresses the 2D projections of an object's 3D bounding box corners. This keypoint detection task significantly improves the network's understanding of 3D geometry. For stable end-to-end training, we directly regress rotation using a continuous 9D representation projected to SO(3) via singular value decomposition. On the LINEMOD and LINEMOD-Occluded benchmarks, YOLO-Key-6D achieves competitive accuracy scores of 96.24% and 69.41%, respectively, with the ADD(-S) 0.1d metric, while proving itself to operate in real time. Our results demonstrate that a carefully designed single stage method can provide a practical and effective balance of performance and efficiency for real world deployment.