[COMPARE] Ecosystem Digest, February 9, 2026

[COMPARE Ecosystem]

COMPARE Ecosystem Digest, February 9, 2026

Hello COMPARErs! With several 2026 conference deadlines looming, we appreciate you taking a moment to check out the latest happenings in open-source and benchmarking for robot manipulation. Remember: research contributions that leverage open-source and compare the performance of their contributions to others via benchmarking are looked upon more favorably than those that don’t (maybe not officially, but at least to us 🙂).  We’re brewing several papers of our own that cover activities within the COMPARE Ecosystem, so the pressure is on! Simultaneously, we are developing our first set of guidelines for developing and integrating modular software components, a preview of which you can see on the robot-manipulation.org/software page. We’ll provide a more thorough review of this material soon, but take a look and let us know what you think… See you in two weeks!

Here’s what you may have missed and what’s coming up soon: A new perception repository for open-source pose estimation has been launched, a survey for developing YCB 2.0 object set has been launched, ManipulationNet adds a cable management task, and workshops for ICRA 2026 have been announced! 💬 = recent discussions in the 🤖 = recent additions to

Open-Source Software Components 💬 #software: MorphoAI builds generative AI plugins for CAD to automate the mundane parts of hardware and mechanical design; a new plugin is available to automate 2D drawing creation directly from assemblies. Message Ayna to learn more! [Slack thread] Perception 🤖 Pose Estimation: New repository launched! Featuring open-source object pose estimation packages, categorized by type (e.g., zero-shot, category-level, instance-level), whether or not retraining is required for novel objects, required inputs (e.g., RGB, depth image, object mask), output format (e.g., rotation, translation, transform matrix), and more, with 9 entries to date: Any6D [zero-shot, single object] FoundationPose [zero-shot, single object] FoundPose [zero-shot, single object, multi-detection] FreeZe [zero-shot, single object] GenPose++ [category-level, single object] Geometry-guided Direct Regression Network ++ (GDRNPP) [instance-level, multi-object] Geometry-guided Direct Regression Network (GDR-Net) [instance-level, multi-object] PoseCNN [instance-level, multi-object] PoseRBPF [instance-level, multi-object] Have suggestions for open-source perception packages should be added, pose estimation, detection, or segmentation? Submit them here! https://forms.gle/LHrtmDpm82X4qrDk6

Benchmarking 💬 #general: A new community survey has been launched to support the development of YCB 2.0, an updated version of the YCB dataset! [YCB 2.0 survey] YCB 2.0 is not intended to replace the original dataset, but to extend and evolve it in response to recent advances in robotics and AI, and to better support emerging research needs and use cases. Please take 10 minutes to share your perspective through this anonymous survey!  💬 #benchmarking: ManipulationNet adds Cable Management task! [ManipulationNet] The Cable Management Benchmark requires a single-arm or bimanual robot system to route flexible cables through a sequence of 3D-printed fixtures arranged on a planar worksurface. This task demands robust perception, planning, and dexterous manipulation to handle challenges such as cable perception and deformation, grasp and handover planning, motion planning, obstacle avoidance, frictional force management, and dynamic slack management.

Events Workshops 🤖 Workshops: Several workshops related to robot manipulation, benchmarking, reproducibility, and software modularity will be held at ICRA 2026: June 1, 2026 8th International Workshop on Robotics Software Engineering (RoSE26) Act to Sense to Act Better: 1st Workshop on Learning and Representations for Active Perception in Manipulation Dexterity with Multifingered Hands: Hardware, Sensing, and Skills Open Challenges for Rigorous Robot Perception June 5, 2026 20 Years of Workshops on Benchmarking and Reproducibility: Part I Reproducibility Beyond Teleoperation: Learning from Diverse Human and Simulation Data From Data to Decisions: VLA Pipelines for Real Robots Emerging paradigms for robotic manipulation: the reality of extreme conditions Human-Inspired Principles for Robotic Dexterous Manipulation: What Are We Missing? RoboTac 2026: Embodied Tactile Intelligence in Predictive Perception, Learning, & Control in Grasp & Manipulation: Emerging the Role of Embodiment and Visuo-Tactile-LLM Foundation Models Workshop on Manipulation Robustness: Towards Human-Level Robustness under Real-World Challenges What’s coming up soon? AI for Industry Challenge, March 2 - July, 2026, Mountain View, California, USA Brought to you by Intrinsic and Open Robotics. The AI for Industry Challenge is an open competition for developers and roboticists who want to tackle some of the hardest, high-impact problems that exist in robotics and manufacturing. Win a share of $180,000 prize pool. HRI 2026: ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) 2026, March 16-19, 2026, Edinburgh, UK ERF 2026: European Robotics Forum (ERF) 2026, March 23-27, 2026, Stavanger, Norway Subscribe to the Robot Manipulation Events Google Calendar to stay in the loop!

🤖 Have suggestions for open-source products or benchmarking assets that should be added? Submit them here! https://forms.gle/LHrtmDpm82X4qrDk6 🤖 Have suggestions for events we should add? Use this form to let us know! https://forms.gle/PfiSRjcuQnavbPNS9

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Adam Norton, Community Facilitator, COMPARE Ecosystem

Improving Open-Source and Benchmarking for Robot Manipulation

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