AsyncShield: A Plug-and-Play Edge Adapter for Asynchronous Cloud-based VLA Navigation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yang, Kai, Chu, Zedong, Guo, Yingnan, Wang, Zhengbo, Xie, Shichao, Shen, Yanfen, Wu, Xiaolong, Li, Xing, Xu, Mu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Yang, Kai
Chu, Zedong
Guo, Yingnan
Wang, Zhengbo
Xie, Shichao
Shen, Yanfen
Wu, Xiaolong
Li, Xing
Xu, Mu
author_facet Yang, Kai
Chu, Zedong
Guo, Yingnan
Wang, Zhengbo
Xie, Shichao
Shen, Yanfen
Wu, Xiaolong
Li, Xing
Xu, Mu
contents While Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have been demonstrated possessing strong zero-shot generalization for robot control, their massive parameter sizes typically necessitate cloud-based deployment. However, cloud deployment introduces network jitter and inference latency, which can induce severe spatiotemporal misalignment in mobile navigation under continuous displacement, so that the stale intents expressed in past ego frames may become spatially incorrect in the current frame and lead to collisions. To address this issue, we propose AsyncShield, a plug-and-play asynchronous control framework. AsyncShield discards traditional black-box time-series prediction in favor of a deterministic physical white-box spatial mapping. By maintaining a temporal pose buffer and utilizing kinematic transformations, the system accurately converts temporal lag into spatial pose offsets to restore the VLA's original geometric intent. To balance intent restoration fidelity and physical safety, the edge adaptation is formulated as a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). Solved via the PPO-Lagrangian algorithm, a reinforcement learning adapter dynamically trades off between tracking the VLA intent and responding to high-frequency LiDAR obstacle avoidance hard constraints. Furthermore, benefiting from a standardized universal sub-goal interface, domain randomization, and perception-level adaptation via Collision Radius Inflation, AsyncShield operates as a lightweight, plug-and-play module. Simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate that, without fine-tuning any cloud-based foundation models, the framework exhibits zero-shot and robust generalization capabilities, effectively improving the success rate and physical safety of asynchronous navigation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_24086
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AsyncShield: A Plug-and-Play Edge Adapter for Asynchronous Cloud-based VLA Navigation
Yang, Kai
Chu, Zedong
Guo, Yingnan
Wang, Zhengbo
Xie, Shichao
Shen, Yanfen
Wu, Xiaolong
Li, Xing
Xu, Mu
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
While Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have been demonstrated possessing strong zero-shot generalization for robot control, their massive parameter sizes typically necessitate cloud-based deployment. However, cloud deployment introduces network jitter and inference latency, which can induce severe spatiotemporal misalignment in mobile navigation under continuous displacement, so that the stale intents expressed in past ego frames may become spatially incorrect in the current frame and lead to collisions. To address this issue, we propose AsyncShield, a plug-and-play asynchronous control framework. AsyncShield discards traditional black-box time-series prediction in favor of a deterministic physical white-box spatial mapping. By maintaining a temporal pose buffer and utilizing kinematic transformations, the system accurately converts temporal lag into spatial pose offsets to restore the VLA's original geometric intent. To balance intent restoration fidelity and physical safety, the edge adaptation is formulated as a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). Solved via the PPO-Lagrangian algorithm, a reinforcement learning adapter dynamically trades off between tracking the VLA intent and responding to high-frequency LiDAR obstacle avoidance hard constraints. Furthermore, benefiting from a standardized universal sub-goal interface, domain randomization, and perception-level adaptation via Collision Radius Inflation, AsyncShield operates as a lightweight, plug-and-play module. Simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate that, without fine-tuning any cloud-based foundation models, the framework exhibits zero-shot and robust generalization capabilities, effectively improving the success rate and physical safety of asynchronous navigation.
title AsyncShield: A Plug-and-Play Edge Adapter for Asynchronous Cloud-based VLA Navigation
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24086