# ProxiDex: Learning Dynamics-Guided Proximity Policy for Dexterous Manipulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16586 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16586/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Sep 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13705/) (2023)
- [Grounded SAM: Assembling Open-World Models for Diverse Visual Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14159/) (2024)
- [Learning Complex Dexterous Manipulation with Deep Reinforcement Learning and Demonstrations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.10087/) (2017)
- [SAM 3D: 3Dfy Anything in Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16624/) (2025)
- [AnyTeleop: A General Vision-Based Dexterous Robot Arm-Hand Teleoperation System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04577/) (2023)
- [Open-TeleVision: Teleoperation with Immersive Active Visual Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01512/) (2024)
- [DexPilot: Vision Based Teleoperation of Dexterous Robotic Hand-Arm System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.03135/) (2019)
- [DexPoint: Generalizable Point Cloud Reinforcement Learning for Sim-to-Real Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09423/) (2022)
- [Bunny-VisionPro: Real-Time Bimanual Dexterous Teleoperation for Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.03162/) (2024)
- [3D-ViTac: Learning Fine-Grained Manipulation with Visuo-Tactile Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24091/) (2024)
- [OPEN TEACH: A Versatile Teleoperation System for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07870/) (2024)
- [DexArt: Benchmarking Generalizable Dexterous Manipulation with Articulated Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05706/) (2023)
- [DexUMI: Using Human Hand as the Universal Manipulation Interface for Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21864/) (2025)
- [LDA-1B: Scaling Latent Dynamics Action Model via Universal Embodied Data Ingestion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12215/) (2026)
- [ManiFlow: A General Robot Manipulation Policy via Consistency Flow Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01819/) (2025)
- [D(R,O) Grasp: A Unified Representation of Robot and Object Interaction for Cross-Embodiment Dexterous Grasping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01702/) (2024)
- [DexWild: Dexterous Human Interactions for In-the-Wild Robot Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.07813/) (2025)
- [OmniVTA: Visuo-Tactile World Modeling for Contact-Rich Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19201/) (2026)
- [Visuo-Tactile World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06001/) (2026)
- [DOGlove: Dexterous Manipulation with a Low-Cost Open-Source Haptic Force Feedback Glove](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07730/) (2025)
- [CordViP: Correspondence-based Visuomotor Policy for Dexterous Manipulation in Real-World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08449/) (2025)
- [AirExo-2: Scaling up Generalizable Robotic Imitation Learning with Low-Cost Exoskeletons](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.03081/) (2025)
- [VTAM: Video-Tactile-Action Models for Complex Physical Interaction Beyond VLAs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23481/) (2026)
- [Scaling Cross-Embodiment World Models for Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01177/) (2025)
- [Adaptive Visuo-Tactile Fusion with Predictive Force Attention for Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13982/) (2025)
- [DexImit: Learning Bimanual Dexterous Manipulation from Monocular Human Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10105/) (2026)
- [Canonical Representation and Force-Based Pretraining of 3D Tactile for Dexterous Visuo-Tactile Policy Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17549/) (2024)
- [Dexterous Manipulation Policies from RGB Human Videos via 3D Hand-Object Trajectory Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.09013/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Multi-finger dexterous manipulation relies on stable hand-object interactions, yet these interactions are partially observable in practice. Visual observations are often occluded by the hand, tactile sensors introduce hardware-specific modalities and calibration burdens, and existing policies rarely model how these cues evolve under actions, making them brittle under contact uncertainty. To address these, we present ProxiDex, a dynamics-guided proximity policy framework that treats hand-object proximity as an interaction state for dexterous manipulation. ProxiDex reconstructs interaction point clouds and converts geometric distances into proximity cues, forming a hardware-agnostic contact representation that provides immersive feedback during VR teleoperation. Built on this representation, ProxiDex learns action-conditioned proximity dynamics with a coupled forward-inverse design: future observation latents are predicted from actions, while proximity variations are decoded from latent changes. Leveraging these dynamics, ProxiDex adaptively reweights proximity tokens across manipulation phases and uses dynamics-consistency supervision to guide policy inference, stabilizing action generation under unreliable visual feedback. Simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate improved success rates and robustness over representative baselines across standard, unseen objects, and perturbation scenarios. Additional visualizations are available at https://proxidex.github.io/.