{"ID":2859534,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06339","arxiv_id":"2510.06339","title":"Vi-TacMan: Articulated Object Manipulation via Vision and Touch","abstract":"Autonomous manipulation of articulated objects remains a fundamental challenge for robots in human environments. Vision-based methods can infer hidden kinematics but can yield imprecise estimates on unfamiliar objects. Tactile approaches achieve robust control through contact feedback but require accurate initialization. This suggests a natural synergy: vision for global guidance, touch for local precision. Yet no framework systematically exploits this complementarity for generalized articulated manipulation. Here we present Vi-TacMan, which uses vision to propose grasps and coarse directions that seed a tactile controller for precise execution. By incorporating surface normals as geometric priors and modeling directions via von Mises-Fisher distributions, our approach achieves significant gains over baselines (all p\u003c0.0001). Critically, manipulation succeeds without explicit kinematic models -- the tactile controller refines coarse visual estimates through real-time contact regulation. Tests on more than 50,000 simulated and diverse real-world objects confirm robust cross-category generalization. This work establishes that coarse visual cues suffice for reliable manipulation when coupled with tactile feedback, offering a scalable paradigm for autonomous systems in unstructured environments.","short_abstract":"Autonomous manipulation of articulated objects remains a fundamental challenge for robots in human environments. Vision-based methods can infer hidden kinematics but can yield imprecise estimates on unfamiliar objects. Tactile approaches achieve robust control through contact feedback but require accurate initializatio...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06339","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.06339v3","authors":"[\"Leiyao Cui\",\"Zihang Zhao\",\"Sirui Xie\",\"Wenhuan Zhang\",\"Zhi Han\",\"Yixin Zhu\"]","published":"2025-10-07T18:02:50Z","proceeding":"cs.RO","tasks":"[\"cs.RO\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}