ScanBot: A Benchmark for Precision Robotic Surface Scanning with Industrial Laser Profilers

We introduce ScanBot, a benchmark for instruction-conditioned, high-precision surface scanning with robot-mounted industrial laser profilers. Unlike existing robot learning datasets that emphasize coarse behaviors such as grasping, navigation, or dialogue, ScanBot targets sensing-centric tasks where sub-millimeter motion continuity, strict stand-off control, and stable scanner settings are essential for acquiring usable geometry. The dataset contains scanning trajectories over twenty objects, including electronic components and structured 3D-printed parts, and spans six task types that range from broad inspection to fine-grained detail scanning and geometry-critical operations, including metrology and registration. Each episode is specified by natural language instructions and paired with synchronized first-person RGB-D, third-person video, laser height profiles, robot joint and pose traces, and scanner-parameter logs. These requirements expose a gap: despite recent progress, learning-based models often fail to produce stable and feasible scan motions under fine-grained instructions and real laser-profiling constraints. To reflect how industrial scanning is actually done, we evaluate methods through a two-stage pipeline. Stage I asks the model to "set up the sensor" by recommending scanner parameters, while Stage II asks it to "move like a scanner" by producing smooth, feasible trajectories that maintain stand-off and cover the intended region under precision demands.