Hello COMPARErs! Did you survive the IROS paper deadline? If you’re reading this, then yes, you did, and we’re glad you made it. We survived, too; this year was a doozy. 
The COMPARE logo is an emoji in our Slack now! Use :compare: to try it out. As you’ll see in today’s digest, quite a few new open-source software components have been added to our repositories, with many more on the way. There is so much activity in the community – and we can only keep up with so much ourselves – so we encourage you all to please share open-source and benchmarking assets with us! Make a post on Slack, shoot us an e-mail, or submit them using the forms linked at the bottom of this message. The COMPARE project team is planning several events this summer to bring the community together to continue building this ecosystem, developing guidelines to improve open-source development and sharing practices, and benchmarking techniques. Keep your eyes peeled! |
💬 #software: The official mujoco_ros2_control bridge has been released; has anyone tried it out and care to share their experiences or initial thoughts? [GitHub] [Slack thread] 🤖 Motion Planners: 2 new entries (13 total): CRISP [optimization, C++, using a customized trust region SCP algorithm] 
RoboPlan [plug-in, C++, Python, using the Pinocchio library to represent robots] 
🤖 Learning Environments: 1 new entry (31 total): RoTO: Robot Tactile Olympiad [reinforcement learning, tactile-based manipulation, single arm, example implementation, reproducible, leaderboard, code available, runs in the Isaac Sim simulator] 
🤖 Simulators: 3 new entries (19 total): Forge [contact-rich manipulation, sim-to-real transfer, scalable] 
Genie Sim [embodied AI, sim-to-real transfer, scalable, reproducible, example implementation, code available] 
SOFA Frameworks [biomechanics, medical robotics, scalable, reproducible, example implementation] 
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🤖 Grasp Datasets: 3 new entries (63 total):
Dex1B: Grasping [grasp detection, sim data, Objaverse XL and DexGraspNet objects, point cloud input, dexterous grasp output, 6K objects, 1 billion samples] 
GraspFactory [grasp detection, sim data, ABC Dataset objects, 3D object model mesh input, 6-DoF grasp pose output, 48K objects, 109 million samples] 
GraspQP [grasp detection, simdata, DexGraspNet objects, point cloud input, 6-DoF grasp pose output, 5.7K objects] 
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💬 #events: ERAS 2026: IEEE RAS International Conference on Engineering Reliable Autonomous Systems (ERAS) 2026 deadlines have been extended! [ERAS website] Regular papers, short/position papers, and r-articles: March 21, 2026 Workshop, tutorial, and competition proposals: March 21, 2026 TASE, RAP, ToH, TFR, and TMRB papers: March 31, 2026 Late breaking reports: April 14, 2026 ERAS 2026 conference date: May 28-29, 2026 
🤖 Competitions: 2 new competitions announced: AgiBot World Challenge 2026, February 12 - June 4, 2026, Vienna, Austria, part of ICRA 2026
This competition provides an open platform featuring real-world scenarios, running on cutting-edge AgiBot G2 Robot and the open-source simulation platform Genie Sim 3.0. It is structured around two tracks targeting essential dimensions of robotics: open-world understanding & manipulation, and world modeling & prediction. 
Autonomous Robot Manipulation (ARM) Challenge, July 2026, Incheon, South Korea, part of RoboCup 2026
Participants are tasked with completing a recycling task with a robot manipulator in a dynamic environment. Teams will implement perception and control algorithms in MATLAB and Simulink to grasp and manipulate bottles, cans, and detergent pouches within a table to classify them into two bins.  
What’s coming up soon?
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
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