SwitchVLA: Execution-Aware Task Switching for Vision-Language-Action Models

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, Meng, Zhao, Zhen, Che, Zhengping, Liao, Fei, Wu, Kun, Xu, Zhiyuan, Ren, Pei, Jin, Zhao, Liu, Ning, Tang, Jian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916777985835008
author Li, Meng
Zhao, Zhen
Che, Zhengping
Liao, Fei
Wu, Kun
Xu, Zhiyuan
Ren, Pei
Jin, Zhao
Liu, Ning
Tang, Jian
author_facet Li, Meng
Zhao, Zhen
Che, Zhengping
Liao, Fei
Wu, Kun
Xu, Zhiyuan
Ren, Pei
Jin, Zhao
Liu, Ning
Tang, Jian
contents Robots deployed in dynamic environments must be able to not only follow diverse language instructions but flexibly adapt when user intent changes mid-execution. While recent Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have advanced multi-task learning and instruction following, they typically assume static task intent, failing to respond when new instructions arrive during ongoing execution. This limitation hinders natural and robust interaction in dynamic settings, such as retail or household environments, where real-time intent changes are common. We propose SwitchVLA, a unified, execution-aware framework that enables smooth and reactive task switching without external planners or additional switch-specific data. We model task switching as a behavior modulation problem conditioned on execution state and instruction context. Expert demonstrations are segmented into temporally grounded contact phases, allowing the policy to infer task progress and adjust its behavior accordingly. A multi-behavior conditional policy is then trained to generate flexible action chunks under varying behavior modes through conditioned trajectory modeling. Experiments in both simulation and real-world robotic manipulation demonstrate that SwitchVLA enables robust instruction adherence, fluid task switching, and strong generalization-outperforming prior VLA baselines in both task success rate and interaction naturalness.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_03574
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SwitchVLA: Execution-Aware Task Switching for Vision-Language-Action Models
Li, Meng
Zhao, Zhen
Che, Zhengping
Liao, Fei
Wu, Kun
Xu, Zhiyuan
Ren, Pei
Jin, Zhao
Liu, Ning
Tang, Jian
Robotics
Robots deployed in dynamic environments must be able to not only follow diverse language instructions but flexibly adapt when user intent changes mid-execution. While recent Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have advanced multi-task learning and instruction following, they typically assume static task intent, failing to respond when new instructions arrive during ongoing execution. This limitation hinders natural and robust interaction in dynamic settings, such as retail or household environments, where real-time intent changes are common. We propose SwitchVLA, a unified, execution-aware framework that enables smooth and reactive task switching without external planners or additional switch-specific data. We model task switching as a behavior modulation problem conditioned on execution state and instruction context. Expert demonstrations are segmented into temporally grounded contact phases, allowing the policy to infer task progress and adjust its behavior accordingly. A multi-behavior conditional policy is then trained to generate flexible action chunks under varying behavior modes through conditioned trajectory modeling. Experiments in both simulation and real-world robotic manipulation demonstrate that SwitchVLA enables robust instruction adherence, fluid task switching, and strong generalization-outperforming prior VLA baselines in both task success rate and interaction naturalness.
title SwitchVLA: Execution-Aware Task Switching for Vision-Language-Action Models
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03574