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contact-rich manipulation
also contact-rich robotic manipulation or manipulation in contact or in-contact manipulation
Definition of contact-rich manipulation
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: robotic manipulation in which success depends on sustained or repeated physical contact and on controlling forces between the robot, an object, and the surrounding environment
- Inserting a plug without jamming it is a contact-rich manipulation task because position alone does not reveal the forces at the connector.
- The robot combined tactile feedback with a learned policy for contact-rich manipulation of tools and deformable objects.
Origin & history
Contact-rich manipulation grew from long-standing research on force control, compliant motion, robotic assembly, and manipulation in contact. The phrase became increasingly common in robot-learning research as imitation learning, tactile sensing, and foundation models were applied to tasks such as insertion, wiping, fastening, and in-hand manipulation.
Editorial references
Sources & further reading
- A Survey of Robot Manipulation in Contact↗ Peer Reviewed Survey · Robotics and Autonomous Systems / arXiv · 2022
- A Survey on Imitation Learning for Contact-Rich Tasks in Robotics↗ Research Survey · arXiv · 2025-06-16
- Spark-0: Scaling Spatially Aligned Tactile Pretraining for Robot Dexterous Manipulation↗ Research Paper · arXiv · 2026-10-15
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Cite this entry
"Contact-rich manipulation." AI Dictionary, Dadgogo, https://dadgogo.com/dictionary/contact-rich-manipulation/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.