Yifei Dong

Hi! I’m a PhD student at KTH in Sweden, advised by Prof. Florian T. Pokorny. I also work closely with DexLab led by Prof. Xianyi Cheng (Duke). I hold an M.Sc. from ETH Zürich and a B.Sc. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. My résumé.

My research focuses on synthesizing robust robotic manipulation skills and designing novel robot manipulators using machine learning and optimization tools. I am particularly interested in non-prehensile skills that exploit tools and environmental contacts, as well as the co-design of robot morphology and control.

If these topics interest you as well, feel free to reach out for a chat!

Outside research, I enjoy playing tennis and skiing.

news

Jun 30, 2026	Our survey paper on robustness of robotic manipulation is out. Feel free to take a read!
Apr 27, 2026	We will present in RSS 2026, Sydney, our paper on robot co-design for fragile object manipulation.
Jan 31, 2026	Our paper on robust robotic tool use has been accepted to ICRA 2026, Vienna.
Jan 11, 2026	We will organize a workshop at ICRA 2026: Workshop on Manipulation Robustness: Towards Human-Level Robustness under Real-World Challenges.

selected publications

Latent Diffeomorphic Co-Design of End-Effectors for Deformable and Fragile Object Manipulation

Kei Ikemura* , Yifei Dong*, and Florian T. Pokorny

Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2026

RSS 2025 Workshop on Robot Hardware-Aware Intelligence (Spotlight)

arXiv Bib PDF workshop Video Website

@article{ikemura2026latent,
  title = {Latent Diffeomorphic Co-Design of End-Effectors for Deformable and Fragile Object Manipulation},
  author = {Ikemura*, Kei and Dong*, Yifei and Pokorny, Florian T.},
  workshop_name = {RSS 2025 Workshop on Robot Hardware-Aware Intelligence (Spotlight)},
  year = {2026},
  journal = {Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS)},
}

Robustness of Robotic Manipulation: Foundations and Frontiers

Yifei Dong, Zhanyi Sun , Lujie Yang , Manuel Baum , Kei Ikemura , Shuran Song , and 2 more authors

Preprint, 2026

arXiv Bib PDF

@article{dong2026robustness,
  title = {Robustness of Robotic Manipulation: Foundations and Frontiers},
  author = {Dong, Yifei and Sun, Zhanyi and Yang, Lujie and Baum, Manuel and Ikemura, Kei and Song, Shuran and Pokorny, Florian T. and Cheng, Xianyi},
  year = {2026},
  journal = {Preprint},
}

Robustness-Aware Tool Selection and Manipulation Planning with Learned Energy-Informed Guidance

Yifei Dong*, Yan Zhang* , Sylvain Calinon , and Florian T. Pokorny

IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2026

arXiv Bib PDF Video

@article{dong2025robustness,
  title = {Robustness-Aware Tool Selection and Manipulation Planning with Learned Energy-Informed Guidance},
  author = {Dong*, Yifei and Zhang*, Yan and Calinon, Sylvain and Pokorny, Florian T.},
  journal = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  year = {2026},
}

CageCoOpt: Enhancing Manipulation Robustness through Caging-Guided Morphology and Policy Co-Optimization

Yifei Dong*, Shaohang Han* , Xianyi Cheng , Werner Friedl , Rafael I. Cabral Muchacho , Máximo A. Roa , and 2 more authors

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2025

arXiv Bib PDF Video Website

@article{dong2025cagecoopt,
  title = {CageCoOpt: Enhancing Manipulation Robustness through Caging-Guided Morphology and Policy Co-Optimization},
  author = {Dong*, Yifei and Han*, Shaohang and Cheng, Xianyi and Friedl, Werner and Muchacho, Rafael I. Cabral and Roa, Máximo A. and Tumova, Jana and Pokorny, Florian T.},
  journal = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  year = {2025},
}

Sim-to-Real Gentle Manipulation of Deformable and Fragile Objects with Stress-Guided Reinforcement Learning

Kei Ikemura* , Yifei Dong*, David Blanco-Mulero , Alberta Longhini , Li Chen , and Florian T. Pokorny

Preprint, 2025

arXiv Bib PDF Website

@article{ikemura2025sim,
  title = {Sim-to-Real Gentle Manipulation of Deformable and Fragile Objects with Stress-Guided Reinforcement Learning},
  author = {Ikemura*, Kei and Dong*, Yifei and Blanco-Mulero, David and Longhini, Alberta and Chen, Li and Pokorny, Florian T.},
  journal = {Preprint},
  year = {2025},
}

Grasping a Handful: Sequential Multi-Object Dexterous Grasp Generation

Haofei Lu , Yifei Dong, Zehang Weng , Florian T. Pokorny , Jens Lundell , and Danica Kragic

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2025

ICRA 2025 Workshop on Dexterity in Multi-Fingered Hands (Spotlight)

arXiv Bib workshop Video Website

@article{lu2025grasping,
  title = {Grasping a Handful: Sequential Multi-Object Dexterous Grasp Generation},
  author = {Lu, Haofei and Dong, Yifei and Weng, Zehang and Pokorny, Florian T. and Lundell, Jens and Kragic, Danica},
  journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)},
  workshop_name = {ICRA 2025 Workshop on Dexterity in Multi-Fingered Hands (Spotlight)},
  year = {2025},
}

Characterizing Manipulation Robustness through Energy Margin and Caging Analysis

Yifei Dong, Xianyi Cheng , and Florian T. Pokorny

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2024

ICRA 2024 Workshop on Multi-Object Grasping (Oral)

Bib PDF workshop Video

@article{dong2024caging,
  title = {Characterizing Manipulation Robustness through Energy Margin and Caging Analysis},
  author = {Dong, Yifei and Cheng, Xianyi and Pokorny, Florian T.},
  journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)},
  workshop_name = {ICRA 2024 Workshop on Multi-Object Grasping (Oral)},
  year = {2024},
}

Quasi-static Soft Fixture Analysis of Rigid and Deformable Objects

Yifei Dong, and Florian T. Pokorny

IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024

ICRA 2023 Workshop on Representing and Manipulating Deformable Objects

Bib PDF workshop Video Code Website

@article{dong2023quasi,
  title = {Quasi-static Soft Fixture Analysis of Rigid and Deformable Objects},
  author = {Dong, Yifei and Pokorny, Florian T.},
  journal = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  year = {2024},
  workshop_name = {ICRA 2023 Workshop on Representing and Manipulating Deformable Objects},
}

academic services

Organizing	Main organizer of ICRA 2026 Workshop on Manipulation Robustness, Vienna
Paper review	IJRR, RA-L, ICRA, CoRL, IROS, ISRR
Teaching	Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Robotics, DD2410, KTH (2024, 2025)
Talks	Talk at UCSD (2026) Guest lecture at Duke University (2025) Talk at Caltech (2024)