# RL for robot locomotion and manipulation

Area: [Deep reinforcement learning methods](https://mlsanity.com/deeprl/index.md). HTML: https://mlsanity.com/deeprl/rl-for-robot-locomotion-and-manipulation/

## Key facts

- RL for robot locomotion and manipulation: 928 papers on arXiv since 2024 (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- 60 of its 928 mapped papers (6%) cite “Precise and Dexterous Robotic Manipulation via Human-in-the-Loop Reinforcement Learning” (2024, arXiv 2410.21845).
- 46 of its 928 mapped papers (5%) cite “Reinforcement Learning for Versatile, Dynamic, and Robust Bipedal Locomotion Control” (2024, arXiv 2401.16889).
- 35 new papers 30 Sep–14 Oct.

## Most cited here

- [Precise and Dexterous Robotic Manipulation via Human-in-the-Loop Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21845/) (2024), cited by 60 papers here
- [Reinforcement Learning for Versatile, Dynamic, and Robust Bipedal Locomotion Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16889/) (2024), cited by 46 papers here
- [SERL: A Software Suite for Sample-Efficient Robotic Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16013/) (2024), cited by 42 papers here
- [Learning Human-to-Humanoid Real-Time Whole-Body Teleoperation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04436/) (2024), cited by 24 papers here
- [Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotics: A Survey of Real-World Successes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03539/) (2024), cited by 23 papers here
- [Steering Your Diffusion Policy with Latent Space Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.15799/) (2025), cited by 22 papers here
- [Advancing Humanoid Locomotion: Mastering Challenging Terrains with Denoising World Model Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.14472/) (2024), cited by 21 papers here
- [Gymnasium: A Standard Interface for Reinforcement Learning Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17032/) (2024), cited by 19 papers here
- [Improving Vision-Language-Action Model with Online Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.16664/) (2025), cited by 18 papers here
- [RL-100: Performant Robotic Manipulation with Real-World Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14830/) (2025), cited by 17 papers here

## New (30 Sep–14 Oct)

- [Modeling and Understanding Neural Weights of Humanoid Policies with Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20606/) (2026-10-14)
- [Hyperspherical Contrastive Representations Unlock Planning and Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20409/) (2026-10-14)
- [ACRO: Actor-Critic Rollout Orchestration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19677/) (2026-10-14)
- [Instruction-Conditioned Motion Control for Robotic Arms: Language-to-Code Decomposition and Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19617/) (2026-10-14)
- [PolyMorph: Learning Locomotion Policy for Cross-Embodiment Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19615/) (2026-10-14)
- [VLRLA: Deployment-Time Adaptation of Vision-Language-Action Models through In-Context Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19517/) (2026-10-14)
- [OneDemo: Unified Policy Learning and Data Generation from a Single Demonstration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.18188/) (2026-10-13)
- [P-BFM: Perceptive Behavioral Foundation Models for Humanoid Control via Unsupervised Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.15833/) (2026-10-11)
- [Chunk-wise Model-based Policy Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14564/) (2026-10-10)
- [From Video to Vision: Learning Generalizable Humanoid Carrying from Human Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14561/) (2026-10-10)
- [Learning to See through Action: Predictive Curiosity for Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14302/) (2026-10-09)
- [Disentangling Task-Relevant Latent Dynamics for Reward Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14159/) (2026-10-09)
- [Evo-RL: Iterative Robot Reinforcement Learning from Selective Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13345/) (2026-10-09)
- [OGPO: Offline Goal-conditioned Policy Optimization for Recoverable Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12914/) (2026-10-09)
- [Leveraging Human-In-The-Loop Demonstrations in Reinforcement Learning for Digital Twin-Driven Robot Flexibility](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12140/) (2026-10-08)
- [A Geometric Approach to Soft Actor-Critic with Zonotopes for Locomotion Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12113/) (2026-10-08)
- [Higher-Order Morphology Priors for Quadruped Reinforcement Learning Under Actuator Degradation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10934/) (2026-10-07)
- [NavGPT-3: Harnessing Context in a Hierarchical Navigation Runtime](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10787/) (2026-10-07)
- [Energy-Efficient Gait Adaptation via Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning for Quadrupedal Locomotion Across Diverse Terrains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10297/) (2026-10-07)
- [A Scoping Review and Experimental Study on Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback for Human-Robot Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.09891/) (2026-10-07)
- [Teaching a Robot Dog New Tricks: Diverse Quadruped Skills via Combined Reinforcement and Imitation Learning with Adversarial Task Selection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10601/) (2026-10-06)
- [HULK: Learning Whole-Body Forceful Loco-Manipulation for Humanoids](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.08970/) (2026-10-06)
- [QF3: Fast Flow RL with Filtered Q-Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.08789/) (2026-10-06)
- [Attacca: Goal-Directed Control under State Continuity for Long-Horizon Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.07785/) (2026-10-06)
- [BiGym 2.0: Benchmarking Learned and Agent-Developed Policies for Humanoid Household Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.07594/) (2026-10-06)
- [Task-Space Imitation Guidance for Efficient Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.07527/) (2026-10-05)
- [I-BFM: Reward-Conditioned Robust Humanoid Interaction via Unsupervised Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.06129/) (2026-10-05)
- [Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning for Collision-Free Locomotion of an Underactuated Biped](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.05855/) (2026-10-05)
- [PatternDex: Learning Interaction Patterns to Guide Reinforcement Learning of Bimanual Dexterous Manipulation of Articulated Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.04765/) (2026-10-03)
- [Reinforcement Learning from Real-Robot Interaction without High-Quality State Estimates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14042/) (2026-10-02)