Manipulation

Pouring

Pouring is the manipulation task of transferring liquid or granular material between containers, requiring control of container tilt and trajectory in response to flow. It is a standard benchmark for dynamic, non-rigid manipulation because outcomes depend on material properties and fluid dynamics that are hard to model, and success requires perception of fill level and spillage, often from vision alone.

Why it matters for physical AI

Household and industrial tasks are full of liquids and granular media that rigid-body assumptions cannot capture, making pouring a compact test of whether policies can handle dynamics beyond rigid objects.