Franka Emika Panda
Franka Emika's 7-DoF torque-sensing research arm, the robot behind the DROID dataset and many VLA papers. Franka's current documentation calls it the older robot (FER or Panda) next to its successor, the Franka Research 3. LeRobot has no native Panda support. The only LeRobot integration is LeFranX, a fork/extension built for a Panda (FER) with a RobotEra XHand.
LeRobot communityverified 2026-10-24aka Panda, FER, Franka Panda, Franka Emika Panda, Franka FER
Policies on Franka Emika Panda 16 with evidence · 5 unknown
| Policy | State | Tier | Verified | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACT Imitation | works with caveats | T3 · community reported | 2026-10-24 1d ago | Community-reported only; not documented upstream or maintainer-tested. |
| Diffusion Policy Imitation | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | The LeRobot route is community-reported only: the LeVR/LeFranX authors fine-tuned LeRobot's Diffusion Policy on a Panda (FER) with a RobotEra XHand, using the LeFranX fork, which has no Franka Hand gripper support. |
| EO-1 VLA | works | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | |
| Evo-1 VLA | partial | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-25 today | Simulation only: LIBERO (simulated Franka Panda); no real-robot training or inference documented. |
| GR00T N1.7 VLA | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | NVIDIA documents the DROID deployment path (inference server + DROID robot control script) but publishes no on-robot DROID success rates for N1.7. The README reports only offline MSE on demo data. |
| HIL-SERL RL | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | Upstream names a Panda only as one arm of its bimanual Panda + FR3 setup. It does not say which single-arm tasks ran on which Franka model. |
| MolmoAct2 VLA | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | Evidence is for the DROID setup (Franka, external + wrist camera, 15-step chunks at DROID's 15 Hz). The paper says 'DROID setup' without naming the arm model. The DROID platform is Panda-based, but its software also accepts an FR3. |
| OpenVLA-OFT VLA | partial | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-25 today | Simulation only: LIBERO; no real-robot training or inference documented. |
| OpenVLA VLA | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | Panda results come from fine-tuning (10-150 demonstrations per task), not out-of-the-box use. The OpenVLA repo ships no Franka controller or deployment script. |
| π0-FAST VLA | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | Documented for the DROID platform (Panda, two ZED 2 exterior cameras plus a ZED Mini wrist camera, DROID control laptop/NUC), not for an arbitrary Panda setup. openpi warns that its expert checkpoints may not generalize to other setups. |
| π0 VLA | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | openpi lists pi0_droid as a fine-tuning starting point and says it may not follow language commands as well as π0-FAST-DROID. On real DROID tasks PI reports a lower score for π0 (0.49) than for its knowledge-insulated model (0.55). |
| π0.5 VLA | works with caveats | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-24 1d ago | Documented for the DROID platform (Panda, ZED 2 exterior + ZED Mini wrist cameras, DROID control laptop/NUC), not for an arbitrary Panda setup. The policy uses one exterior camera plus the wrist camera. |
| SmolVLA VLA | partial | T3 · community reported | 2026-10-24 1d ago | The checkpoints' Panda identity comes from repo and robot_type naming (panda_ros_cartesian, panda_joint* states). The cards are auto-generated with no hardware description. |
| VLA-JEPA VLA | partial | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-25 today | Simulation only: LIBERO (simulated Franka Emika Panda); no real-robot training or inference on a Panda is documented. The paper's real-robot experiments use a Franka Research 3 (see the franka-fr3 cell). |
| VQ-BeT Imitation | partial | T1 · upstream documented | 2026-10-25 today | Simulation only: Franka Kitchen (MuJoCo); no real-robot training or inference documented. |
| X-VLA VLA | partial | T3 · community reported | 2026-10-24 1d ago | The checkpoint's Panda identity comes from repo and robot_type naming (panda_ros_cartesian, panda_joint* states). The card is auto-generated with no hardware description. |
Not yet verified: Fast-WAM, LingBot-VA, Multitask DiT, TD-MPC, WALL-OSS. Have evidence?
Specifications
Panda (FER) is not the Franka Research 3 (franka-fr3). Compatibility evidence for one does not transfer to the other. Note that the DROID control stack accepts either arm (robot_type panda or fr3), although the DROID dataset was collected on Pandas. Datasheet (April 2020): 7 DoF, 3 kg payload, 855 mm reach, pose repeatability <±0.1 mm (ISO 9283), link-side torque sensors in all 7 axes.
Framework support
| Framework | Support | Since | Type string | Docs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LeRobot | communitysrc | — | — | docs |
| LeRobot: LeFranX is a LeRobot fork/extension for the Franka FER (Panda) with a RobotEra XHand. Its files are copied over a LeRobot checkout (tested at LeRobot commit ce3b9f627e55), and it has no Franka Hand gripper interface. LeRobot itself registers no Panda robot type. | ||||
Sources
- T1 · upstream documentedvendor-docsverified 2026-10-24 (1d ago)
Franka's FCI documentation covers two robots: the Franka Research 3 and the older FER/Panda.
“The software and its documentation support two different robots, the Franka Research 3 (FR3) and an older Franka Robotics Robot (FER or Panda).”
https://frankarobotics.github.io/docs/ - T1 · upstream documentedvendor-docsverified 2026-10-24 (1d ago)
Franka Emika Panda datasheet (Release Version April 2020, archived copy; the original download.franka.de link now returns 403): 7 DoF, 3 kg payload, 855 mm reach, pose repeatability <+/- 0.1 mm.
“Degrees of freedom 7 Joint velocity limits A1, A2, A3, A4: 150°/s Payload 3 kg A5, A6, A7: 180°/s Workspace see backside Cartesian velocity limits up to 2 m/s end effector speed Maximum reach 855 mm Pose repeatabillity <+/- 0.1 mm (ISO 9283)”
https://web.archive.org/web/20220125184811/https://download.franka.de/Franka_Emika_Panda_Data_sheet_EN-2020_04.pdf - T1 · upstream documentedpapersource 2025-04-22verified 2026-10-24 (1d ago)
DROID paper: the DROID data-collection platform, shared by all 13 institutions, is built on the Franka Emika Panda.
“We chose the Franka Emika Panda 7 DoF robot arm as the base of our setup since it is widely adopted in the robot research community, reliable, relatively affordable and was available at most participating institutions.”
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.12945v2 - T1 · upstream documentedofficial-docssource 2025-09-15verified 2026-10-24 (1d ago)
The DROID control software is configured for either a Panda or an FR3, so a 'DROID setup' does not by itself identify the arm model.
“Finally update the `robot_type` parameter to `panda` or `fr3` depending on which robot you are using.”
https://github.com/droid-dataset/droid/blob/33ae6a67274f36d2e29525b86f23a56616ef43a7/docs/software-setup/host-installation.md - T3 · community reportedsource-codesource 2025-09-22verified 2026-10-24 (1d ago)
LeFranX README: a LeRobot extension for the Franka FER (Panda) plus RobotEra XHand. It is installed by copying files over a LeRobot checkout (tested at commit ce3b9f627e55) and has no Franka Hand gripper interface.
https://github.com/wengmister/LeFranX/blob/a39906e6629f39490950fe8bd20f4f992ed74fd7/README.md - T1 · upstream documentedofficial-docssource 2026-08-03verified 2026-10-24 (1d ago)lerobot 0.6.1
LeRobot's third-party page lists LeFranX with the ⚠️ fork/extension marker (not a drop-in plugin).
“LeRobot extension for the <a href="https://franka.de/">Franka</a> research arm, paired with the <a href="https://www.robotera.com/">RobotEra XHand</a> hand for VR teleoperation.”
https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot/blob/v0.6.1/docs/source/third_party_robots.mdx - T3 · community reportedgithub-issuesource 2025-07-22verified 2026-10-24 (1d ago)
A user asked for LeRobot support for a real Franka Emika Panda and found no robot.type for it. The issue was closed after other users pointed to their own FR3 tooling (CRISP), not to a Panda integration.
https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot/issues/1567