在视觉语言动作模型中,用最小化记忆机制提升部分可观测环境下的操作能力。
$μ$VLA: On Recurrent Memory for Partially Observable Manipulation in VLA Models

- 引入可学习的记忆令牌,通过自注意力跨时间步更新,实现端到端训练。
- 在MIKASA-Robo上成功率从42%提升至84%,保持全可观测时性能不降。
- 验证了基础递归记忆的有效边界,适合无额外结构的简单任务场景。
视觉语言动作(VLA)模型通常基于当前观测预测未来动作序列,但在部分可观测环境下,决策依赖于已消失的信息,该假设失效。现有带记忆的VLA模型常同时引入递归、检索、压缩模块、辅助目标、层次记忆或任务特定结构变化,导致递归本身的作用难以分离。本文提出对递归机制进行受控隔离研究,在强预训练的VLA骨干网络中,仅通过添加少量可学习的记忆令牌并沿时间步传递与更新,使用截断反向传播通过时间(TBPTT)端到端训练,无需辅助损失或架构修改。我们构建μVLA系列模型,参数包括记忆宽度m、TBPTT长度K及记忆更新规则(跨步梯度或去连接的指数移动平均),使递归成为唯一变量。在MIKASA-Robo上,最强设置下五项训练任务平均成功率从0.42提升至0.84,未见训练的任务上达到0.23,远超无记忆基线的0.07;需不同记忆结构的任务表现接近基线。在LIBERO上,最优递归变体达96.2%平均成功率,表明在全可观测下无性能下降。结果揭示了极简递归记忆的能力边界,明确了其适用与需增强记忆结构的场景。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Vision-language-action (VLA) models predict chunks of future actions from the current observation, an assumption that fails under partial observability, where decisions depend on information no longer visible. Existing memory-augmented VLAs simultaneously introduce recurrence, retrieval, compression modules, auxiliary objectives, hierarchical memory, or task-specific architectural changes, so the contribution of recurrence itself remains entangled with surrounding machinery. We present a controlled isolation study of recurrence in a strong pretrained VLA backbone. Our formulation augments the transformer with a small set of learnable memory tokens carried across timesteps and updated through self-attention, trained end to end with truncated backpropagation through time, with no auxiliary losses and no architectural changes. We instantiate this as $μ$VLA, a family of OpenVLA-OFT variants parameterized by memory width m, TBPTT length K, and the memory update rule (cross-step gradients or a detached EMA), so that recurrence is the only varying factor. On MIKASA-Robo, $μ$VLA improves average success rate on five training tasks from 0.42 to 0.84 at the strongest setting and reaches 0.23 on held-out tasks with the same memory structure versus 0.07 for the memoryless baseline. On tasks requiring different memory structure, performance remains near baseline. On LIBERO, the strongest recurrent variant achieves 96.2% average success, indicating no regression under full observability. We interpret these results as a calibration of the capability envelope of minimal in-backbone recurrence, identifying the regime in which it is sufficient and the regime where additional memory structure is required. Demos and videos can be found in https://avanturist322.github.io/mu-vla/.
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