Research
Frontier robotics research: arXiv cs.RO papers, embodied AI, VLA models, manipulation, navigation and learning systems.
Frontier robotics research: arXiv cs.RO papers, embodied AI, VLA models, manipulation, navigation and learning systems.
Latest in Research
6171 storiesHiRE: Hindsight Reward Editing for Policy Finetuning
arXiv:2609.27068v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Pre-trained robot policies always require finetuning to adapt to specific environments. Reinforcement Learning (…
The Gaussian Is Enough: Flow-Matching Priors Do Not Help When Fine-Tuning Large Behavior Models
arXiv:2609.27070v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Modern robot imitation learning increasingly relies on generative policies based on diffusion or flow-matching m…
Fast Direction-Conditioned Reachability for Motion Prediction Under Model Uncertainty
arXiv:2609.27077v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: To avoid collisions, a robot must repeatedly predict where nearby agents may move, usually with an imperfect mod…
Water Surface Swimming in a Centipede and its Robophysical ModeL
arXiv:2609.27088v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Elongate multi-legged robots use coordinated body waves and distributed legs to move through cluttered terrestri…
Design and Modeling of a Single-Port Three-Arm Robotic Tool for Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery
arXiv:2609.27099v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Surgical robots require highly dexterous and compact robotic systems capable of operating effectively within con…
Planning Trajectories that Bounce: Reflection Classes for Collision-Tolerant Robots
arXiv:2609.27145v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Robot navigation methods tend to avoid contact, and consequently search for collision-free trajectories. For rob…
HINT-Blimp: Human INTent Inference from Multimodal Cues for Robotic Blimps
arXiv:2609.27154v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In human-robot interaction, traditional interfaces such as joysticks and handheld tablets introduce latency into…
Fine Wrist Control as a Marker of Surgical Teleoperation Expertise
arXiv:2609.27160v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Unlike most intensely physical pursuits, surgical robotic teleoperation training focuses primarily on task outco…
Median Temporal Ensembling: Training-Free Robust Aggregation for Action-Chunked Visuomotor Policies
arXiv:2609.27167v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Action-chunked visuomotor policies predict overlapping trajectories, so every executed action is covered by seve…
Learning Dissipative Dynamics with Dissipativity-by-Construction Discrete-Time Neural Networks
arXiv:2609.27188v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Dissipativity is a fundamental system-theoretic property closely related to stability, passivity, and input--out…
NaviScale: Generating Large-Scale Semantic Map Datasets for Object Navigation
arXiv:2609.27218v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Embodied navigation requires spatial representations that generalize across unseen environments, yet collecting …
Vision-Based Control of a Tether-Suspended Aerial Radiation Sensing Payload
arXiv:2609.27219v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Aerial radiation surveys achieve higher sensitivity when the radiation detector is held close to the ground. Det…
A Quasi-Direct-Drive Underactuated Asymmetric Hand for Dexterous and Efficient Grasping and Manipulation
arXiv:2609.27240v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In this paper, we present the Berkeley QUAD (Quasi-direct-drive, Underactuated, Asymmetric Design) Hand, a four-…
Memory That Changes Action Is Not Memory That Guides It: Counterfactual Auditing of History-Conditioned Robot Policies
arXiv:2609.27247v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: A robot returning a block to its origin tray may encounter two task-consistent pasts that reconverge to the same…
Banana Kick: Response-Informed Skill Evolution for Humanoid Soccer
arXiv:2609.27269v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Humanoid kicking requires coordinated whole-body motion and precise contact, while a banana kick demands contact…
BranchDrive: A Branch-Structured Dataset for Action-Conditioned Driving Prediction
arXiv:2609.27275v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Most autonomous-driving datasets record only the action executed by a behavior policy and the single future that…
EmbodiedSWE: Coding Agents for Long Horizon Dexterous Robotics
arXiv:2609.27308v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study coding agents for long-horizon, dexterous robotics and ask whether their solutions can provide scalable…
Turning Safety into Competence: Minimally Exploitable Robot Policies via Safety-Filtered Reinforcement Learning
arXiv:2609.27312v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Robots deployed for competitive tasks must outmaneuver their opponents without sacrificing safety. Existing appr…
CoRe-WAM: Correspondence-Aligned Temporal Residuals for World Action Models
arXiv:2609.27314v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Comparing current and past observations helps robots understand scene changes and select subsequent actions duri…
A Sample-Based Approach for Hierarchical Information-Theoretic Compression of Probabilistic Occupancy Grids
arXiv:2609.27330v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We develop a sample-based framework for constructing information-driven hierarchical multi-resolution representa…
DUGM-R: Uncertainty-Aware Dynamic Grid Mapping and Risk-Triggered Recovery for Learned Local Navigation
arXiv:2609.27338v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Learned local navigation in crowded indoor environments is sensitive to how dynamic obstacle motion is represent…
Spatial and Semantic Reasoning for LLM-Driven Robot Navigation via MCP
arXiv:2609.27340v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used as natural-language interfaces for robotic systems, yet their…
From LiDAR Maps to Visual Localization: Unified Visual Association for Robust Point-Line-Plane Pose Estimation
arXiv:2609.27363v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Camera localization in a prior LiDAR map provides a persistent geometric reference for long-term robotic navigat…
CoPRE: Improving Sensitivity in Proprioceptive Contact Detection for Low-Cost Robot Arms
arXiv:2609.27381v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Contact detection during robotic manipulation allows robots to recognize unexpected contact and adapt their moti…
X2Real: an eXtensive simulation benchmark for real-world generalist policies
arXiv:2609.27449v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Generalist robot manipulation policies have developed rapidly, yet their reliable evaluation remains challenging…
BEE: Intervention-Adaptive Real-World Reinforcement Learning with Vision-Language-Action Models
arXiv:2609.27450v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Vision-language-action (VLA) models handle long-horizon manipulation, yet success hinges on a few precision-crit…
Safety-Filtered Distributed Koopman-MPC
arXiv:2609.27463v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Distributed model predictive control (DMPC) often constructs both predictions and collision constraints from nei…
A Modular Dual-Arm Robotic Cell for Disassembly and Repair of Industrial Control Electronics
arXiv:2609.27466v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Industrial control electronics such as programmable logic controllers, servo drives and operator panels are rout…
Kairos: Grounded Forecasting of Presence and Directional Flow in 4D Scene Graphs
arXiv:2609.27467v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Long-term autonomy in human-populated environments requires anticipating whether and how people will move at tim…
Collocated Shape Regulation for Soft Robots
arXiv:2609.27469v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Controlling the shape of a continuum soft robot typically requires an accurate dynamic model and actuation of al…