Retrieve-then-Steer: Online Success Memory for Test-Time Adaptation of Generative VLAs

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Zhao, Jianchao, Yang, Huoren, Hu, Yusong, Gao, Yuyang, Ou, Qiguan, Wan, Cong, Dong, SongLin, Ma, Zhiheng, Gong, Yihong
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Zhao, Jianchao
Yang, Huoren
Hu, Yusong
Gao, Yuyang
Ou, Qiguan
Wan, Cong
Dong, SongLin
Ma, Zhiheng
Gong, Yihong
author_facet Zhao, Jianchao
Yang, Huoren
Hu, Yusong
Gao, Yuyang
Ou, Qiguan
Wan, Cong
Dong, SongLin
Ma, Zhiheng
Gong, Yihong
contents Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models show strong potential for general-purpose robotic manipulation, yet their closed-loop reliability often degrades under local deployment conditions. Existing evaluations typically treat test episodes as independent zero-shot trials. However, real robots often operate repeatedly in the same or slowly changing environments, where successful executions provide environment-verified evidence of reliable behavior patterns. We study this persistent-deployment setting, asking whether a partially competent frozen VLA can improve its reliability by reusing its successful test-time experience. We propose an online success-memory guided test-time adaptation framework for generative VLAs. During deployment, the robot stores progress-calibrated successful observation-action segments in a long-term memory. At inference, it retrieves state-relevant action chunks, filters inconsistent candidates via trajectory-level consistency, and aggregates them into an elite action prior. To incorporate this prior into action generation, we introduce confidence-adaptive prior guidance, which injects the elite prior into an intermediate state of the flow-matching action sampler and adjusts the guidance strength based on retrieval confidence. This design allows the frozen VLA to exploit environment-specific successful experience while preserving observation-conditioned generative refinement. This retrieve-then-steer mechanism enables lightweight, non-parametric test-time adaptation without requiring parameter updates. Simulation and real-world experiments show improved task success and closed-loop stability, especially in long-horizon and multi-stage tasks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_10094
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Retrieve-then-Steer: Online Success Memory for Test-Time Adaptation of Generative VLAs
Zhao, Jianchao
Yang, Huoren
Hu, Yusong
Gao, Yuyang
Ou, Qiguan
Wan, Cong
Dong, SongLin
Ma, Zhiheng
Gong, Yihong
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models show strong potential for general-purpose robotic manipulation, yet their closed-loop reliability often degrades under local deployment conditions. Existing evaluations typically treat test episodes as independent zero-shot trials. However, real robots often operate repeatedly in the same or slowly changing environments, where successful executions provide environment-verified evidence of reliable behavior patterns. We study this persistent-deployment setting, asking whether a partially competent frozen VLA can improve its reliability by reusing its successful test-time experience. We propose an online success-memory guided test-time adaptation framework for generative VLAs. During deployment, the robot stores progress-calibrated successful observation-action segments in a long-term memory. At inference, it retrieves state-relevant action chunks, filters inconsistent candidates via trajectory-level consistency, and aggregates them into an elite action prior. To incorporate this prior into action generation, we introduce confidence-adaptive prior guidance, which injects the elite prior into an intermediate state of the flow-matching action sampler and adjusts the guidance strength based on retrieval confidence. This design allows the frozen VLA to exploit environment-specific successful experience while preserving observation-conditioned generative refinement. This retrieve-then-steer mechanism enables lightweight, non-parametric test-time adaptation without requiring parameter updates. Simulation and real-world experiments show improved task success and closed-loop stability, especially in long-horizon and multi-stage tasks.
title Retrieve-then-Steer: Online Success Memory for Test-Time Adaptation of Generative VLAs
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.10094