# RoCo Challenge at AAAI 2026: Benchmarking Robotic Collaborative Manipulation for Assembly Towards Industrial Automation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15469 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.15469/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Mask R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06870/) (2017)
- [Sigmoid Loss for Language Image Pre-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15343/) (2023)
- [RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15818/) (2023)
- [OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09246/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24164/) (2024)
- [π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16054/) (2025)
- [Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13705/) (2023)
- [LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03310/) (2023)
- [GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14734/) (2025)
- [SAM 3: Segment Anything with Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16719/) (2025)
- [CALVIN: A Benchmark for Language-Conditioned Policy Learning for Long-Horizon Robot Manipulation Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03227/) (2021)
- [RoboTwin 2.0: A Scalable Data Generator and Benchmark with Strong Domain Randomization for Robust Bimanual Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18088/) (2025)
- [ManiSkill3: GPU Parallelized Robotics Simulation and Rendering for Generalizable Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.00425/) (2024)
- [MegaPose: 6D Pose Estimation of Novel Objects via Render & Compare](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06870/) (2022)
- [Aligning Cyber Space with Physical World: A Comprehensive Survey on Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.06886/) (2024)
- [FurnitureBench: Reproducible Real-World Benchmark for Long-Horizon Complex Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.12821/) (2023)
- [Galaxea Open-World Dataset and G0 Dual-System VLA Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00576/) (2025)
- [FMB: a Functional Manipulation Benchmark for Generalizable Robotic Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08553/) (2024)
- [Robot Learning in the Era of Foundation Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14379/) (2023)
- [FailSafe: Reasoning and Recovery from Failures in Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.01642/) (2025)
- [Learning from Trajectories via Subgoal Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07224/) (2019)
- [RoboDexVLM: Visual Language Model-Enabled Task Planning and Motion Control for Dexterous Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01616/) (2025)
- [A Survey on Imitation Learning for Contact-Rich Tasks in Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13498/) (2025)
- [Information-Theoretic Detection of Bimanual Interactions for Dual-Arm Robot Plan Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.19832/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Embodied Artificial Intelligence (EAI) is rapidly developing, gradually subverting previous autonomous systems' paradigms from isolated perception to integrated, continuous action. This transition is highly significant for industrial robotic manipulation, promising to free human workers from repetitive, dangerous daily labor. To benchmark and advance this capability, we introduce the Robotic Collaborative Assembly Assistance (RoCo) Challenge with a dataset towards simulation and real-world assembly manipulation. Set against the backdrop of human-centered manufacturing, this challenge focuses on a high-precision planetary gearbox assembly task, a demanding yet highly representative operation in modern industry. Built upon a self-developed data collection, training, and evaluation system in Isaac Sim, and utilizing a dual-arm robot for real-world deployment, the challenge operates in two phases. The Simulation Round defines fine-grained task phases for step-wise scoring to handle the long-horizon nature of the assembly. The Real-World Round mirrors this evaluation with physical gearbox components and high-quality teleoperated datasets. The core tasks require assembling an epicyclic gearbox from scratch, including mounting three planet gears, a sun gear, and a ring gear. Attracting over 60 teams and 170+ participants from more than 10 countries, the challenge yielded highly effective solutions, most notably ARC-VLA and RoboCola. Results demonstrate that a dual-model framework for long-horizon multi-task learning is highly effective, and the strategic utilization of recovery-from-failure curriculum data is a critical insight for successful deployment. This report outlines the competition setup, evaluation approach, key findings, and future directions for industrial EAI. Our dataset, CAD files, code, and evaluation results can be found at: https://rocochallenge.github.io/RoCo2026/.