arXiv AI

PrefO2O: Zero-Shot Preference-Based Reinforcement Learning via Offline-to-Online Latent Preference Transfer

PrefO2O introduces an offline-to-online latent preference transfer framework that enables zero‑shot preference‑based reinforcement learning on unseen tasks without human feedback. It learns a task‑invariant latent preference space from limited offline preference data, disentangling transferable preference structures from task‑specific variations. The method uses confidence‑weighted optimal transport to generate reliable pseudo‑preference supervision for online reward adaptation, achieving performance that matches or exceeds traditional PbRL methods trained with real human feedback across various robotic manipulation and locomotion benchmarks.

arXiv AI
Jul 1

Freeform Preference Learning for Robotic Manipulation

arXiv:2606. 32027v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Reward design remains a central bottleneck for autonomous robot policy improvement, especially in long-horizon manipulation tasks where sparse success labels provide too little signal and binary preferences collapse many competing notions of quality into one ambiguous signal.

By Marcel Torne, Anubha Mahajan, Abhijnya Bhat, Chelsea Finn
arXiv AI
Oct 16

LIBERO-PeRM: Benchmarking Personalized Robotic Manipulation

LIBERO-PeRM is a benchmark for studying personalized robotic manipulation, focusing on how policies learn and follow user preferences in zero‑shot settings, from demonstrations, and across varying tasks and layouts. It introduces a taxonomy of language‑expressible preferences—motion, skill, and user‑profile choices—within the LIBERO simulation framework, generating 312 tasks with paired demonstrations and preference‑satisfaction metrics. Experiments reveal that current vision‑language‑action policies struggle with zero‑shot personalization, while supervised fine‑tuning improves learnability, yet challenges remain in generalization, decomposition, and conflict handling.

By Zhixu Li, Keqian Tang, Litian Gong, Jingyu Yao, Wenqian Zhang, Tianze Xu, Zehao Wang, Yuping Wang, Junge Zhang, Jiachen Li
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 23

What Does It Take For A Generalist Robot Policy To Adapt Using Minimal Data?

The paper introduces a minimal‑data adaptation regime where a pretrained robot policy learns a new task from a single demonstration followed by autonomous online interaction. It shows that while zero‑shot performance is poor, one demonstration can guide the policy toward coarse task‑following, and identifies key design principles—pretrained VLA representations for sample‑efficient value learning, residual policy learning for corrective behavior, and data‑balancing to avoid exploration collapse. The proposed MiDAS method, combining few‑demonstration behavior cloning with value‑based residual learning over frozen VLA representations, significantly boosts task success on LIBERO, RoboCasa, and a bimanual YAM platform after only a few hours of online interaction.

By Shreyas Kowshik, Sreyas Venkataraman, Leo Wang, Niharika Pant, Max Simchowitz, Aviral Kumar
arXiv AI
Aug 28

Residual Reward Models: Leveraging Prior Knowledge for Efficient Preference-based Reinforcement Learning in Robotics

The paper introduces Residual Reward Models (RRM) to enhance preference‑based reinforcement learning (PbRL) in robotics. RRMs decompose the true reward into a prior component—such as a heuristic, language‑generated, or IRL‑derived reward—and a learned residual that is trained with human preferences. Experiments on Meta‑World, DM‑Control, and a physical Franka Panda robot show that RRMs markedly improve sample efficiency and accelerate policy learning compared to standard PbRL methods.

By Chenyang Cao, Miguel Rogel-Garc\'ia, Mohamed Nabail, Xueqian Wang, Nicholas Rhinehart
arXiv AI
Oct 1

SynIL: Leveraging Synergy for Offline Imitation Learning from Imperfect Demonstration Datasets

SynIL is a new framework for offline imitation learning that automatically assesses the quality of demonstration data without requiring labels. It uses motor synergy—a low‑dimensional coordinated movement pattern linked to proficiency—to generate dense, transition‑level reward signals through self‑supervised reward regression. Experiments on D4RL locomotion and Robomimic manipulation datasets show that synergy‑derived rewards align well with true rewards and that SynIL outperforms Behavior Cloning and rivals or surpasses offline reinforcement learning in sparse‑reward scenarios.

By Yuto Tanaka, Kyo Kutsuzawa, Martina Doku, Dai Owaki, Mitsuhiro Hayashibe