arXiv Machine Learning
6d ago

VLA-ULAP: Interleaving Cloud VLA Calls with Ultra-Lightweight Local Action Prediction at the Edge

The paper introduces VLA-ULAP, a lightweight local action predictor that interleaves remote vision–language–action (VLA) calls with on‑edge inference. ULAP, with only 7.4 M parameters, predicts action chunks in a single pass using current views, proprioception, and action history, eliminating the need for VLA hidden states or server round‑trips. Experiments on Jetson Orin Nano and simulated benchmarks show that VLA-ULAP can remove 48.8–76.7 % of VLA calls while preserving 95–97.5 % of baseline success, and it outperforms local VLA‑acceleration alternatives in both inference time and energy consumption.

By Deyu Cao, Ryuji Oi, Kosuke Matsushima, Yuxuan Pan, Ziheng Wang, Daichi Fujiki, Atsutake Kosuge