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Main Authors: Cai, Yichen, Jansonnie, Paul, de Farias, Cristiana, Arenz, Oleg, Peters, Jan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05108
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author Cai, Yichen
Jansonnie, Paul
de Farias, Cristiana
Arenz, Oleg
Peters, Jan
author_facet Cai, Yichen
Jansonnie, Paul
de Farias, Cristiana
Arenz, Oleg
Peters, Jan
contents Digital twins promise to enhance robotic manipulation by maintaining a consistent link between real-world perception and simulation. However, most existing systems struggle with the lack of a unified model, complex dynamic interactions, and the real-to-sim gap, which limits downstream applications such as model predictive control. Thus, we propose GaussTwin, a real-time digital twin that combines position-based dynamics with discrete Cosserat rod formulations for physically grounded simulation, and Gaussian splatting for efficient rendering and visual correction. By anchoring Gaussians to physical primitives and enforcing coherent SE(3) updates driven by photometric error and segmentation masks, GaussTwin achieves stable prediction-correction while preserving physical fidelity. Through experiments in both simulation and on a Franka Research 3 platform, we show that GaussTwin consistently improves tracking accuracy and robustness compared to shape-matching and rigid-only baselines, while also enabling downstream tasks such as push-based planning. These results highlight GaussTwin as a step toward unified, physically meaningful digital twins that can support closed-loop robotic interaction and learning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_05108
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle GaussTwin: Unified Simulation and Correction with Gaussian Splatting for Robotic Digital Twins
Cai, Yichen
Jansonnie, Paul
de Farias, Cristiana
Arenz, Oleg
Peters, Jan
Robotics
Digital twins promise to enhance robotic manipulation by maintaining a consistent link between real-world perception and simulation. However, most existing systems struggle with the lack of a unified model, complex dynamic interactions, and the real-to-sim gap, which limits downstream applications such as model predictive control. Thus, we propose GaussTwin, a real-time digital twin that combines position-based dynamics with discrete Cosserat rod formulations for physically grounded simulation, and Gaussian splatting for efficient rendering and visual correction. By anchoring Gaussians to physical primitives and enforcing coherent SE(3) updates driven by photometric error and segmentation masks, GaussTwin achieves stable prediction-correction while preserving physical fidelity. Through experiments in both simulation and on a Franka Research 3 platform, we show that GaussTwin consistently improves tracking accuracy and robustness compared to shape-matching and rigid-only baselines, while also enabling downstream tasks such as push-based planning. These results highlight GaussTwin as a step toward unified, physically meaningful digital twins that can support closed-loop robotic interaction and learning.
title GaussTwin: Unified Simulation and Correction with Gaussian Splatting for Robotic Digital Twins
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05108