Memory, Benchmark & Robots: A Benchmark for Solving Complex Tasks with Reinforcement Learning
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Abstract (arXiv)
Memory is crucial for enabling agents to tackle complex tasks with temporal and spatial dependencies. While many reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms incorporate memory, the field lacks a universal benchmark to assess an agent's memory capabilities across diverse scenarios. This gap is particularly evident in tabletop robotic manipulation, where memory is essential for solving tasks with partial observability and ensuring robust performance, yet no standardized benchmarks exist. To address this, we introduce MIKASA (Memory-Intensive Skills Assessment Suite for Agents), a comprehensive benchmark for memory RL, with three key contributions: (1) we propose a comprehensive classification framework for memory-intensive RL tasks, (2) we collect MIKASA-Base -- a unified benchmark that enables systematic evaluation of memory-enhanced agents across diverse scenarios, and (3) we develop MIKASA-Robo (pip install mikasa-robo-suite) -- a novel benchmark of 32 carefully designed memory-intensive tasks that assess memory capabilities in tabletop robotic manipulation. Our work introduces a unified framework to advance memory RL research, enabling more robust systems for real-world use. MIKASA is available at https://tinyurl.com/membenchrobots.
Key facts. Cited by 34 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 71 of its 96 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Feb 2025.
Builds on
71 of 96 references.
References · 71
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50 most cited of 71 All 71 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 7; 2026: 27.
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- 2025MemoryVLA: Perceptual-Cognitive Memory in Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 183
- 2025A Survey of Context Engineering for Large Language Modelscited by 120
- 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Surveycited by 66
- 2026RMBench: Memory-Dependent Robotic Manipulation Benchmark with Insights into Policy Designcited by 40
- 2025Don't Blind Your VLA: Aligning Visual Representations for OOD Generalizationcited by 34
- 2025Rethinking Progression of Memory State in Robotic Manipulation: An Object-Centric Perspectivecited by 20
- 2026EventVLA: Event-Driven Visual Evidence Memory for Long-Horizon Vision-Language-Action Policiescited by 18
- 2026Gated Memory Policy: In-Context Memorization and Adaptationcited by 13
- 2026MemoryVLA++: Temporal Modeling via Memory and Imagination in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 9
- 2026vla-eval: A Unified Evaluation Harness for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 7
- 2026μVLA: On Recurrent Memory for Partially Observable Manipulation in VLA Modelscited by 7
- 2025ELMUR: External Layer Memory with Update/Rewrite for Long-Horizon RL Problemscited by 6
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- 2026Data Pyramid for Embodied Manipulation: A Surveycited by 4
- 2026SimpleMemVLA: A Simple but Effective Native-Video Memory for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 2
- 2026Memory Retention Is Not Enough to Master Memory Tasks in Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
- 2026WatchAct: A Benchmark for Behavior-Grounded Robot Manipulationcited by 1
- 2026FibVLA: An Efficient Temporal Vision-Language-Action Model with Fibonacci Samplingcited by 1
- 2026KAGE-Bench: Fast Known-Axis Visual Generalization Evaluation for Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
- 2026Does VLA Even Know the Basics? Measuring Commonsense and World Knowledge Retention in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 0
- 2026RoboSPA: Can VLA Models Go Beyond Simple Scenes and Short-Horizon Tasks?cited by 0
- 2026Learning to Use Imagination: Progress-Conditioned Future Utilization for World Action Modelscited by 0
- 2026MEMOBench: A Process Level Memory Benchmark for Robotic Manipulationcited by 0
- 2026SmoLSTM: A Compact Vision-Language-Action Model with Recurrent Memory that Persistscited by 0
- 2026ActiveArena: Benchmarking and Understanding Active Perception in Robotic Manipulationcited by 0
- 2026Minimal Recurrent Behavioral Memory for Imitation under Partial Observabilitycited by 0
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- 2026RoboIRGBench: Benchmarking Implicit Referential Grounding in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 0
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- 2026Self-Supervised Keyframe Discovery for Horizon-Invariant Behavior Cloningcited by 0
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- 2026ALER: Adaptive Learnable Experience Rewriting for Reinforcement Learning30 Sep 2026
- 2026Simple Agentic Memory for Generalist Robot Policies29 Sep 2026
- 2026RoboIRGBench: Benchmarking Implicit Referential Grounding in Vision-Language-Action Models28 Sep 2026
- 2026MemBodied: Recurrent Associative Memory for Vision-Language-Action Models23 Sep 2026
- 2026Minimal Recurrent Behavioral Memory for Imitation under Partial Observability22 Sep 2026
- 2026ActiveArena: Benchmarking and Understanding Active Perception in Robotic Manipulation21 Sep 2026
- 2026SmoLSTM: A Compact Vision-Language-Action Model with Recurrent Memory that Persists19 Sep 2026
- 2026MEMOBench: A Process Level Memory Benchmark for Robotic Manipulation7 Sep 2026
- 2026Learning to Use Imagination: Progress-Conditioned Future Utilization for World Action Models6 Sep 2026
- 2026RoboSPA: Can VLA Models Go Beyond Simple Scenes and Short-Horizon Tasks?4 Sep 2026
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- 2026SimpleMemVLA: A Simple but Effective Native-Video Memory for Vision-Language-Action Models2 Sep 2026
- 2026FibVLA: An Efficient Temporal Vision-Language-Action Model with Fibonacci Sampling31 Jul 2026
- 2026Data Pyramid for Embodied Manipulation: A Survey27 Jul 2026
- 2026WatchAct: A Benchmark for Behavior-Grounded Robot Manipulation24 Jun 2026
- 2026EventVLA: Event-Driven Visual Evidence Memory for Long-Horizon Vision-Language-Action Policies18 Jun 2026
- 2026Does VLA Even Know the Basics? Measuring Commonsense and World Knowledge Retention in Vision-Language-Action Models17 Jun 2026
- 2026μVLA: On Recurrent Memory for Partially Observable Manipulation in VLA Models10 Jun 2026
- 2026MemoryVLA++: Temporal Modeling via Memory and Imagination in Vision-Language-Action Models8 Jun 2026
- 2026Gated Memory Policy: In-Context Memorization and Adaptation21 Apr 2026
- 2026Chameleon: Control-Indexed Prospective Memory for Visuomotor Manipulation25 Mar 2026
- 2026vla-eval: A Unified Evaluation Harness for Vision-Language-Action Models14 Mar 2026
- 2026VPWEM: Non-Markovian Visuomotor Policy with Working and Episodic Memory5 Mar 2026
- 2026RMBench: Memory-Dependent Robotic Manipulation Benchmark with Insights into Policy Design1 Mar 2026
- 2026Memory Retention Is Not Enough to Master Memory Tasks in Reinforcement Learning21 Jan 2026
- 2026KAGE-Bench: Fast Known-Axis Visual Generalization Evaluation for Reinforcement Learning20 Jan 2026
- 2025Rethinking Progression of Memory State in Robotic Manipulation: An Object-Centric Perspective14 Nov 2025
- 2025Don't Blind Your VLA: Aligning Visual Representations for OOD Generalization29 Oct 2025
- 2025NEBULA: Do We Evaluate Vision-Language-Action Agents Correctly?17 Oct 2025
- 2025ELMUR: External Layer Memory with Update/Rewrite for Long-Horizon RL Problems8 Oct 2025
- 2025MemoryVLA: Perceptual-Cognitive Memory in Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation26 Aug 2025
- 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey18 Aug 2025
- 2025A Survey of Context Engineering for Large Language Models17 Jul 2025
- 2025MemoryVLA: Perceptual-Cognitive Memory in Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 183
- 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Surveycited by 66
- 2025Rethinking Progression of Memory State in Robotic Manipulation: An Object-Centric Perspectivecited by 20
- 2026EventVLA: Event-Driven Visual Evidence Memory for Long-Horizon Vision-Language-Action Policiescited by 18
- 2026MemoryVLA++: Temporal Modeling via Memory and Imagination in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 9
- 2026vla-eval: A Unified Evaluation Harness for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 7
- 2026μVLA: On Recurrent Memory for Partially Observable Manipulation in VLA Modelscited by 7
- 2025NEBULA: Do We Evaluate Vision-Language-Action Agents Correctly?cited by 6
- 2026SimpleMemVLA: A Simple but Effective Native-Video Memory for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 2
- 2026FibVLA: An Efficient Temporal Vision-Language-Action Model with Fibonacci Samplingcited by 1
- 2026Does VLA Even Know the Basics? Measuring Commonsense and World Knowledge Retention in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 0
- 2026RoboSPA: Can VLA Models Go Beyond Simple Scenes and Short-Horizon Tasks?cited by 0
12 most cited of 17 All 17 (JSON)
- 2026Simple Agentic Memory for Generalist Robot Policies29 Sep 2026
- 2026RoboIRGBench: Benchmarking Implicit Referential Grounding in Vision-Language-Action Models28 Sep 2026
- 2026MemBodied: Recurrent Associative Memory for Vision-Language-Action Models23 Sep 2026
- 2026SmoLSTM: A Compact Vision-Language-Action Model with Recurrent Memory that Persists19 Sep 2026
- 2026MEMOBench: A Process Level Memory Benchmark for Robotic Manipulation7 Sep 2026
- 2026RoboSPA: Can VLA Models Go Beyond Simple Scenes and Short-Horizon Tasks?4 Sep 2026
- 2026SimpleMemVLA: A Simple but Effective Native-Video Memory for Vision-Language-Action Models2 Sep 2026
- 2026FibVLA: An Efficient Temporal Vision-Language-Action Model with Fibonacci Sampling31 Jul 2026
- 2026EventVLA: Event-Driven Visual Evidence Memory for Long-Horizon Vision-Language-Action Policies18 Jun 2026
- 2026Does VLA Even Know the Basics? Measuring Commonsense and World Knowledge Retention in Vision-Language-Action Models17 Jun 2026
- 2026μVLA: On Recurrent Memory for Partially Observable Manipulation in VLA Models10 Jun 2026
- 2026MemoryVLA++: Temporal Modeling via Memory and Imagination in Vision-Language-Action Models8 Jun 2026
12 newest of 17 All 17 (JSON)
- 2025A Survey of Context Engineering for Large Language Modelscited by 120
- 2026RMBench: Memory-Dependent Robotic Manipulation Benchmark with Insights into Policy Designcited by 40
- 2026Gated Memory Policy: In-Context Memorization and Adaptationcited by 13
- 2025ELMUR: External Layer Memory with Update/Rewrite for Long-Horizon RL Problemscited by 6
- 2026Chameleon: Control-Indexed Prospective Memory for Visuomotor Manipulationcited by 4
- 2026Data Pyramid for Embodied Manipulation: A Surveycited by 4
- 2026Memory Retention Is Not Enough to Master Memory Tasks in Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
- 2026WatchAct: A Benchmark for Behavior-Grounded Robot Manipulationcited by 1
- 2026KAGE-Bench: Fast Known-Axis Visual Generalization Evaluation for Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
- 2026ActiveArena: Benchmarking and Understanding Active Perception in Robotic Manipulationcited by 0
- 2026Minimal Recurrent Behavioral Memory for Imitation under Partial Observabilitycited by 0
- 2026ALER: Adaptive Learnable Experience Rewriting for Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
12 most cited of 13 All 13 (JSON)
- 2026Self-Supervised Keyframe Discovery for Horizon-Invariant Behavior Cloning7 Oct 2026
- 2026ALER: Adaptive Learnable Experience Rewriting for Reinforcement Learning30 Sep 2026
- 2026Minimal Recurrent Behavioral Memory for Imitation under Partial Observability22 Sep 2026
- 2026ActiveArena: Benchmarking and Understanding Active Perception in Robotic Manipulation21 Sep 2026
- 2026Data Pyramid for Embodied Manipulation: A Survey27 Jul 2026
- 2026WatchAct: A Benchmark for Behavior-Grounded Robot Manipulation24 Jun 2026
- 2026Gated Memory Policy: In-Context Memorization and Adaptation21 Apr 2026
- 2026Chameleon: Control-Indexed Prospective Memory for Visuomotor Manipulation25 Mar 2026
- 2026RMBench: Memory-Dependent Robotic Manipulation Benchmark with Insights into Policy Design1 Mar 2026
- 2026Memory Retention Is Not Enough to Master Memory Tasks in Reinforcement Learning21 Jan 2026
- 2026KAGE-Bench: Fast Known-Axis Visual Generalization Evaluation for Reinforcement Learning20 Jan 2026
- 2025ELMUR: External Layer Memory with Update/Rewrite for Long-Horizon RL Problems8 Oct 2025
12 newest of 13 All 13 (JSON)