The paper introduces MISCO, an evolutionary framework that uses deep generative models to design voxel-based soft robots (VSRs). MISCO combines an estimation-of-distribution algorithm with a variational autoencoder that includes multi-task learning, position awareness, and inter-voxel signaling to improve representation and sampling efficiency. The authors provide theoretical guarantees of asymptotic convergence to globally optimal designs and demonstrate through simulations that MISCO effectively navigates large design spaces, producing high-performing VSRs for various tasks while balancing efficiency and diversity.
By Junru Song, Huan Xiao, Yang Yang, Guozhen Li, Wei Peng, Xiaoya Zhang, Tingsong Jiang, Weien Zhou, Ying Wen, Feifei Wang, Wen Yao
arXiv:2608.23100v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Robot co-design via bi-level optimization couples within-lifetime controller learning for fitness evaluation with cross-generational morphological ev...
By Junru Song, Yang Yang, Yaqing Xu, Ying Wen, Wei Peng, Guozhen Li, Wei'en Zhou, Wen Yao
arXiv:2506. 08630v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: A universal controller for any robot morphology would greatly improve computational and data efficiency.
By Laurens Engwegen, Max Weltevrede, Caroline Horsch, Daan Brinks, Wendelin B\"ohmer
arXiv:2609.25627v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: General-purpose robot control requires models to understand task intent, identify where to interact, capture how the scene evolves, and generate prec...
By Haoran Wen, Wenfu Wang, Kunsong Shi, Jingke Wang, Wancheng Feng, Yiren Zhang, Yueran Zhao, Xuancheng Zhang, Nanfei Ye, Xingru Chen, Zhaohong Sun, Chengmin Yang, Zikang Yu, Penghao Bi, Jia Shi, Yu Liu, Kun Zhan, Yan Xie
arXiv:2606. 12109v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have demonstrated remarkable zero-shot generalization in robotic manipulation, yet the vast majority of pre-trained pipelines remain strictly confined to low-DoF parallel grippers.
By Chuanke Pang, Junyi Huang, Zhijun Zhao, Yaobing Wang, Kun Xu, Xilun Ding
arXiv:2604. 21391v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Bridging high-level semantic understanding with low-level physical control remains a persistent challenge in embodied intelligence, stemming from the fundamental spatiotemporal scale mismatch between cognition and action.
By Yiming Zhong, Yaoyu He, Zemin Yang, Pengfei Tian, Yifan Huang, Qingqiu Huang, Xinge Zhu, Yuexin Ma