[COMPARE] Ecosystem Digest, July 27 - August 9, 2025

[COMPARE Ecosystem]

COMPARE Ecosystem Digest, July 27 - August 9, 2025

Here’s what you may have missed last week and what’s coming up soon!
The YCB 2.0 discussion continues in Slack, 9 new grasp planners added, 2 new models and descriptions added, a new page for datasets has been added, new workshops for Humanoids and IROS 2025 added, and CASE, TAROS, and IHO 2025 are this month!

🤖 Recent discussions in the COMPARE Slack:

• #benchmarking_objects-artifacts: Toward YCB 2.0: a worldwide community-based dataset for robotics: new analyses of survey results regarding YCB usage and desired objects and features for benchmarking [link]
• Take a look at the analysis results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18pHcUIGi0Q99Ih_cpnU5YlSsF75wR9cd9eJvTGyFVs8/

• Not part of the COMPARE Slack, but want to contribute to these discussions? Please email compare....@gmail.com with your thoughts! 

🤖 Latest additions to robot-manipulation.org:

• Software Components

• Grasp Planning: Grasp Planners: 9 new entries (48 total), including those from ICRA and CVPR 2025! See the repository for more details

• DexGrasp Anything: A method that effectively integrates physical constraints into both the training and sampling phases of a diffusion-based generative model for multi-finger dexterous hand grasp generation, achieving state-of-the-art performance across nearly all open datasets.
• FoundationGrasp: A foundation model-based TOG (Task oriented grasping) framework that leverages the open-ended knowledge from foundation models to learn generalizable TOG skills.
• GraspGen: Built upon the recent success on modeling the object-centric grasp generation process as an iterative diffusion process, GraspGen consists of a Diffusion-Transformer architecture that enhances grasp generation, paired with an efficient discriminator to score and filter sampled grasps.
• GraspGPT: A large language model (LLM) based TOG framework that leverages the open-end semantic knowledge from an LLM to achieve zero-shot generalization to novel concepts.
• GraspSAM: An innovative extension of the Segment Anything Model (SAM) designed for prompt-driven and category-agnostic grasp detection. Unlike previous methods, which are often limited by small-scale training data, GraspSAM leverages SAM’s large-scale training and prompt-based segmentation capabilities to efficiently support both targetobject and category-agnostic grasping.
• NeuGraspNet: A novel, fully implicit 6DoF grasp detection method that re-interprets robotic grasping as surface rendering and predicts high-fidelity grasps from any random single viewpoint of a scene, exploiting a learned implicit geometric scene representation to perform global and local surface rendering.
• ShapeGrasp: A novel zero-shot task-oriented grasping method leveraging a geometric decomposition of the target object into simple, convex shapes that we represent in a graph structure, including geometric attributes and spatial relationships.
• UniGraspTransformer: A universal Transformer-based network for dexterous robotic grasping that simplifies training while enhancing scalability and performance, following a streamlined process: first, dedicated policy networks are trained for individual objects using reinforcement learning to generate successful grasp trajectories; then, these trajectories are distilled into a single, universal network.
• ZeroGrasp: A framework for simultaneous reconstruction and grasp pose prediction of multiple unseen objects from a single RGB-D image in near real-time.

• Simulation: Models and Descriptions: New repository linking to collections of robot models and descriptions and conversion tools, with 2 new entries (7 total); see the repository for more details!

• RobotCAD: A FreeCAD workbench to generate robot description packages (xacro or URDF) for the Robot Operating System, ROS2. RobotCAD also known as OVERCROSS.
• USD2MJCF: A powerful tool that converts Universal Scene Description (USD) assets into MuJoCo’s MJCF format, enabling seamless transitions from collaborative 3D workflows to high-fidelity physics simulation.

• Benchmarking Assets

• Datasets: New page that collects datasets from across the COMPARE Ecosystem, including datasets for Manipulation, Grasps, and Objects! See the linked repositories for more details

• Have suggestions for open-source products or benchmarking assets that should be added? Submit them here: https://forms.gle/LHrtmDpm82X4qrDk6 
  
  

• Events

• Workshops: This year's SIMERO Summer School and more workshops for Humanoids and IROS 2025! See the repository for more details

• SIMERO 2025: 5th Summer School on Singularities of Mechanisms and Robotic Manipulators: September 15-19, 2025 in Barcelona, Spain
• Advances in Contact-rich Robotics: Rich Tactile-based Physical Interaction (ConRich Workshop): October 2, 2025 at Humanoids 2025 in Seoul, South Korea
• Dexterous Humanoid Manipulation Workshop: October 2, 2025 at Humanoids 2025 in Seoul, South Korea
• Realizing Humanoid Robot Standards: The Bridge from Research to Industry: October 2, 2025 at Humanoids 2025 in Seoul, South Korea
• SPACE: Semantic Planning of robotic Agents in Collaborative Environments: October 24, 2025 at IROS 2025 in Hangzhou, China

• Have suggestions for events we should add? Use this Google Form to let us know! https://forms.gle/PfiSRjcuQnavbPNS9

🤖 What's coming up soon?

• CASE 2025, TAROS 2025, and IHO25 are this month!

• IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) 2025: August 17 - 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA, USA
  
  

• Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS) 2025: August 20 - 22, 2025 in York, UK
  TAROS will feature a special Session organized by ARIA publishing a new strategy on Modularity and Interoperability for Robotics and Autonomous Systems! More info here.
  
  

• International Humanoid Olympiad 2025 (IHO25): August 29 - September 2, 2025 in Olympia, Greece
  
  

• Subscribe to the Robot Manipulation Events Google Calendar to stay in the loop!

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Adam Norton, Community Facilitator, COMPARE Ecosystem

Improving Open-Source and Benchmarking for Robot Manipulation

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