Bimanual robot manipulators can achieve impressive dexterity, but typically rely on two full six- or seven- degree-of-freedom arms so that paired grippers can coordinate effectively. This traditional framework increases system complexity while only exploiting a fraction of the overall workspace for dexterous interaction. We introduce the MiniBEE (Miniature Bimanual End-effector), a compact system in which two reduced-mobility arms (3+ DOF each) are coupled into a kinematic chain that preserves full relative positioning between grippers. To guide our design, we formulate a kinematic dexterity metric that enlarges the dexterous workspace while keeping the mechanism lightweight and wearable. The resulting system supports two complementary modes: (i) wearable kinesthetic data collection with self-tracked gripper poses, and (ii) deployment on a standard robot arm, extending dexterity across its entire workspace. We present kinematic analysis and design optimization methods for maximizing dexterous range, and demonstrate an end-to-end pipeline in which wearable demonstrations train imitation learning policies that perform robust, real-world bimanual manipulation.
@article{arxiv.2510.01603,
title = {MiniBEE: A New Form Factor for Compact Bimanual Dexterity},
author = {Sharfin Islam and Zewen Chen and Zhanpeng He and Swapneel Bhatt and Andres Permuy and Brock Taylor and James Vickery and Zhengbin Lu and Cheng Zhang and Pedro Piacenza and Matei Ciocarlie},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.01603},
year = {2026}
}