PhyRC 2027 Challenge
The PhyRC 2027 Challenge is jointly organized by the EmPRISE Lab at Cornell University and the Robust Intelligence & Robotics (RIRO) Lab at KAIST. The competition facilitates innovation in physical robotic caregiving through one track, Mobile Manipulation for Robot-assisted Dressing, evaluated in two phases: Phase 1: Simulation and Phase 2: Real Robot. Teams may use a mobile manipulator or a bimanual mobile-manipulation setup with two Stretch 4 robots. We would like to thank Hello Robot for generously sponsoring a Stretch 4 robot for the winning team.
PhyRC 2027 · Registration open
Mobile manipulation for robot-assisted dressing.
Dress a seated manikin with a closed-topology T-shirt using a mobile manipulator—or two Stretch 4 robots in a bimanual setup.
- Simulation
- Sep 15 – Dec 15, 2026
- Real robot prep + evaluation
- Jan – May 2027
- Grand prize
- Hello Robot Stretch 4
About Physical Robotic Caregiving
A report from 2021 states that over 1 billion people around the world require assistance to carry out daily tasks, and that this number will significantly increase with the aging population. Caregiving robots have the potential to reduce caregivers' workload and increase care recipients' independence. The EmPRISE Lab is hosting the PhyRC (pronounced as fai-R-C) Challenge, which stands for Physical Robotic Caregiving Challenge. With the mission of enabling robots to improve the quality of life of people with mobility limitations by assisting them with activities of daily living (ADLs), we provide a realistic setup for the robot-assisted dressing task, an important ADL, with the hope to explore solutions to interesting rigid and deformable object manipulation and physical human-robot interaction problems in physical caregiving settings.
Competition Phases
Simulation Phase (Phase 1) (Sep 15 - Dec 15, 2026)
We will use NVIDIA Isaac Sim as a simulation platform for this phase. Teams are required to complete the robot-assisted dressing task in the simulation environment. We will provide the simulation environments including the human avatars, robots, and environmental objects.
Real Robot Prep + Evaluation (Phase 2) (Jan 2027 - May 2027; details TBD)
The real-robot phase is planned for January through May 2027. Its task details and evaluation protocol are TBD.
Task Details
Robot-assisted Dressing
Assistive dressing is an ADL task during which the caregiver helps the care recipient put on garments. The task uses a closed-topology T-shirt. Teams may use a mobile manipulator or a bimanual mobile-manipulation setup with two Stretch 4 robots.
Phase 1 (simulation) participation guide
A demo of the Phase 1 simulation task:
Teams will be scored using the following rubric:
- Pick up the closed-topology T-shirt (5 pts): This task will be considered successful if the T-shirt stays in the robot's hand for 3 seconds when the robot’s hand is lifting it in the air.
- Put one wrist in one sleeve (5 pts): This task will be considered successful if at least one of the manikin’s hands is contained within one of the T-shirt sleeves.
- Pull the T-shirt to the other side (5 pts): This task will be considered successful if any part of the T-shirt goes beyond the shoulder joint of the manikin, and the T-shirt stays between the back of the chair and the manikin.
- Dress the other sleeve (5 pts): This task will be considered successful if the manikin’s hand is in the other sleeve of the T-shirt.
- Overall dressing (30 pts): (n%)*10+(m%)*20 (n = (length covered by the cloth)/(entire arm length of the first arm), m = same metric for the second arm).
We will also account for the efficiency by dividing the score by the time taken for the entire task. We will randomize the positions of the objects and the human configuration in the environment, and evaluate the proposed solution multiple times with randomized initial states.
Tentative Schedule
The schedule is subject to change and will be updated in a timely manner. Join the mailing list using the registration form to get direct notification.
- Registration Opens: Aug 17, 2026
- Registration Deadline: Sep 15, 2026 (11:59pm AOE)
- Phase 1: Sep 15 - Dec 15, 2026 (3 months)
- Phase 2: Real Robot Prep + Evaluation, Jan 2027 - May 2027 (details TBD)
PhyRC 2027 Team
Sehee Jung
Postdoctoral Researcher
5D AI Robotics Initiative, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Injin Choi
Researcher
Department of AI Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Seoyul Jeon
Researcher
School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Daehyung Park
Director, RIRO Lab
School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee
Director, EmPRISE Lab
Department of Computer Science, Cornell University
Contact
For questions about the 2027 challenge, contact Daehyung Park or Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee.
Sponsors
We would like to thank Hello Robot for generously sponsoring a Stretch 4 robot for the winning team.
FAQs
- Are third party libraries allowed?
- Yes, third-party libraries are allowed. Ensure your Docker setup is configured correctly so the environment runs smoothly on the evaluation platform.
- Does the evaluation platform have GPU?
- Yes, the platform supports a single GPU with 12GB of memory.
- If there is a discrepancy between the score that I get locally and the score reported in EvalAI, does that mean there is a bug in the competition code?
- Differences can arise from several factors. We use a set of seeded randomizations for the tasks that are not visible to participants. Make your policy as robust as possible. Additionally, simulation speeds on local computers may differ from the evaluation platform, causing slight score variations. You are allowed multiple submissions per day, and only the highest score will be considered.