Embracing Bulky Objects with Humanoid Robots: Whole-Body Manipulation with Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zheng, Chunxin, Chen, Kai, Bi, Zhihai, Li, Yulin, Pan, Liang, Zhou, Jinni, Li, Haoang, Ma, Jun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zheng, Chunxin
Chen, Kai
Bi, Zhihai
Li, Yulin
Pan, Liang
Zhou, Jinni
Li, Haoang
Ma, Jun
author_facet Zheng, Chunxin
Chen, Kai
Bi, Zhihai
Li, Yulin
Pan, Liang
Zhou, Jinni
Li, Haoang
Ma, Jun
contents Whole-body manipulation (WBM) for humanoid robots presents a promising approach for executing embracing tasks involving bulky objects, where traditional grasping relying on end-effectors only remains limited in such scenarios due to inherent stability and payload constraints. This paper introduces a reinforcement learning framework that integrates a pre-trained human motion prior with a neural signed distance field (NSDF) representation to achieve robust whole-body embracing. Our method leverages a teacher-student architecture to distill large-scale human motion data, generating kinematically natural and physically feasible whole-body motion patterns. This facilitates coordinated control across the arms and torso, enabling stable multi-contact interactions that enhance the robustness in manipulation and also the load capacity. The embedded NSDF further provides accurate and continuous geometric perception, improving contact awareness throughout long-horizon tasks. We thoroughly evaluate the approach through comprehensive simulations and real-world experiments. The results demonstrate improved adaptability to diverse shapes and sizes of objects and also successful sim-to-real transfer. These indicate that the proposed framework offers an effective and practical solution for multi-contact and long-horizon WBM tasks of humanoid robots.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_13534
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Embracing Bulky Objects with Humanoid Robots: Whole-Body Manipulation with Reinforcement Learning
Zheng, Chunxin
Chen, Kai
Bi, Zhihai
Li, Yulin
Pan, Liang
Zhou, Jinni
Li, Haoang
Ma, Jun
Robotics
Whole-body manipulation (WBM) for humanoid robots presents a promising approach for executing embracing tasks involving bulky objects, where traditional grasping relying on end-effectors only remains limited in such scenarios due to inherent stability and payload constraints. This paper introduces a reinforcement learning framework that integrates a pre-trained human motion prior with a neural signed distance field (NSDF) representation to achieve robust whole-body embracing. Our method leverages a teacher-student architecture to distill large-scale human motion data, generating kinematically natural and physically feasible whole-body motion patterns. This facilitates coordinated control across the arms and torso, enabling stable multi-contact interactions that enhance the robustness in manipulation and also the load capacity. The embedded NSDF further provides accurate and continuous geometric perception, improving contact awareness throughout long-horizon tasks. We thoroughly evaluate the approach through comprehensive simulations and real-world experiments. The results demonstrate improved adaptability to diverse shapes and sizes of objects and also successful sim-to-real transfer. These indicate that the proposed framework offers an effective and practical solution for multi-contact and long-horizon WBM tasks of humanoid robots.
title Embracing Bulky Objects with Humanoid Robots: Whole-Body Manipulation with Reinforcement Learning
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.13534