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Main Authors: Li, Wenhao, Su, Xiu, Cao, Yichao, Xu, Hongyan, Xia, Xiaobo, You, Shan, Chen, Yi, Xu, Chang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01194
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author Li, Wenhao
Su, Xiu
Cao, Yichao
Xu, Hongyan
Xia, Xiaobo
You, Shan
Chen, Yi
Xu, Chang
author_facet Li, Wenhao
Su, Xiu
Cao, Yichao
Xu, Hongyan
Xia, Xiaobo
You, Shan
Chen, Yi
Xu, Chang
contents Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have demonstrated remarkable capabilities and generalization in embodied manipulation. However, their decision-making relies on a fast, instinctive process that lacks deliberation. This strategy often leads to suboptimal or catastrophic actions when facing complex or ambiguous scenarios that require greater consideration. In this paper, we introduce \textbf{VLA-ATTC}, a framework that endows VLA models with adaptive test-time compute (TTC). VLA-ATTC employs an uncertainty-based ``cognitive clutch'' to dynamically transition from reflexive execution to a TTC deliberation phase when necessary. During TTC phase, a novel \textbf{Relative Action Critic} (RAC) model identifies the optimal action from generated candidates via pairwise comparisons. This relative mechanism replaces unstable absolute value estimation, significantly simplifying the learning objective. Furthermore, we introduce an efficient sampling strategy to amortize computational costs and an automated data pipeline that curates preference pairs without manual annotation. On the LIBERO-LONG benchmark, VLA-ATTC reduces the failure rate of the SOTA model PI0.5 by over 50\%. We will open-source all the code and weights.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_01194
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle VLA-ATTC: Adaptive Test-Time Compute for VLA Models with Relative Action Critic Model
Li, Wenhao
Su, Xiu
Cao, Yichao
Xu, Hongyan
Xia, Xiaobo
You, Shan
Chen, Yi
Xu, Chang
Robotics
Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have demonstrated remarkable capabilities and generalization in embodied manipulation. However, their decision-making relies on a fast, instinctive process that lacks deliberation. This strategy often leads to suboptimal or catastrophic actions when facing complex or ambiguous scenarios that require greater consideration. In this paper, we introduce \textbf{VLA-ATTC}, a framework that endows VLA models with adaptive test-time compute (TTC). VLA-ATTC employs an uncertainty-based ``cognitive clutch'' to dynamically transition from reflexive execution to a TTC deliberation phase when necessary. During TTC phase, a novel \textbf{Relative Action Critic} (RAC) model identifies the optimal action from generated candidates via pairwise comparisons. This relative mechanism replaces unstable absolute value estimation, significantly simplifying the learning objective. Furthermore, we introduce an efficient sampling strategy to amortize computational costs and an automated data pipeline that curates preference pairs without manual annotation. On the LIBERO-LONG benchmark, VLA-ATTC reduces the failure rate of the SOTA model PI0.5 by over 50\%. We will open-source all the code and weights.
title VLA-ATTC: Adaptive Test-Time Compute for VLA Models with Relative Action Critic Model
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01194