QBIT: Quality-Aware Cloud-Based Benchmarking for Robotic Insertion Tasks

Abstract: Insertion tasks are fundamental yet challenging for robots, particularly in autonomous operations, due to their continuous interaction with the environment. AI-based approaches appear to be up to the challenge, but in production they must not only achieve high success rates. They must also ensure insertion quality and reliability. To address this, we introduce QBIT, a quality-aware benchmarking framework that incorporates additional metrics such as force energy, force smoothness and completion time to provide a comprehensive assessment. To ensure statistical significance and minimize the sim-to-real gap, we randomize contact parameters in the MuJoCo simulator, account for perceptual uncertainty, and conduct large-scale experiments on a Kubernetes-based infrastructure. Our microservice-oriented architecture ensures extensibility, broad applicability, and improved reproducibility. To facilitate seamless transitions to physical robotic testing, we use ROS2 with containerization to reduce integration barriers. We evaluate QBIT using three insertion approaches: geometricbased, force-based, and learning-based, in both simulated and real-world environments. In simulation, we compare the accuracy of contact simulation using different mesh decomposition techniques. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of QBIT in comparing different insertion approaches and accelerating the transition from laboratory to real-world applications. Code is available on GitHub.