Uncertainty-Aware Robotic World Model Makes Offline Model-Based Reinforcement Learning Work on Real Robots
On the map: World models → Latent dynamics models and model-based RL
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Abstract (arXiv)
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has achieved impressive results in robotics, yet high-performing pipelines remain highly task-specific, with little reuse of prior data. Offline Model-based RL (MBRL) offers greater data efficiency by training policies entirely from existing datasets, but suffers from compounding errors and distribution shift in long-horizon rollouts. Although existing methods have shown success in controlled simulation benchmarks, robustly applying them to the noisy, biased, and partially observed datasets typical of real-world robotics remains challenging. We present a principled pipeline for making offline MBRL effective on physical robots. Our RWM-U extends autoregressive world models with epistemic uncertainty estimation, enabling temporally consistent multi-step rollouts with uncertainty effectively propagated over long horizons. We combine RWM-U with MOPO-PPO, which adapts uncertainty-penalized policy optimization to the stable, on-policy PPO framework for real-world control. We evaluate our approach on diverse manipulation and locomotion tasks in simulation and on real quadruped and humanoid, training policies entirely from offline datasets. The resulting policies consistently outperform model-free and uncertainty-unaware model-based baselines, and fusing real-world data in model learning further yields robust policies that surpass online model-free baselines trained solely in simulation.
Key facts. Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Latent dynamics models and model-based RL, one of 11 directions in World models. Builds on 31 of its 41 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Apr 2025.
Builds on
31 of 41 references.
Closest ancestors · 7
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Robotic World Model: A Neural Network Simulator for Robust Policy Optimization in Robotics17 Jan
- 2023Mastering Diverse Domains through World Models10 Jan
- 2022A Walk in the Park: Learning to Walk in 20 Minutes With Model-Free Reinforcement Learning16 Aug
- 2020Mastering Atari with Discrete World Models5 Oct
- 2019Dream to Control: Learning Behaviors by Latent Imagination3 Dec
- 2019When to Trust Your Model: Model-Based Policy Optimization19 Jun
- 2018Deep Reinforcement Learning in a Handful of Trials using Probabilistic Dynamics Models30 May
Other references · 24
- 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 14,441
- 2018Soft Actor-Critic: Off-Policy Maximum Entropy Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Stochastic Actorcited by 4,635
- 2016Simple and Scalable Predictive Uncertainty Estimation using Deep Ensemblescited by 3,888
- 2020Offline Reinforcement Learning: Tutorial, Review, and Perspectives on Open Problemscited by 1,873
- 2020Conservative Q-Learning for Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,777
- 2020D4RL: Datasets for Deep Data-Driven Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,406
- 2019Can You Trust Your Model's Uncertainty? Evaluating Predictive Uncertainty Under Dataset Shiftcited by 1,274
- 2021Offline Reinforcement Learning with Implicit Q-Learningcited by 1,245
- 2018Off-Policy Deep Reinforcement Learning without Explorationcited by 1,227
- 2018Learning Latent Dynamics for Planning from Pixelscited by 1,221
- 2019Stabilizing Off-Policy Q-Learning via Bootstrapping Error Reductioncited by 833
- 2019Behavior Regularized Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 654
12 more
- 2020MOPO: Model-based Offline Policy Optimizationcited by 630
- 2019Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Ataricited by 495
- 2018Accurate Uncertainties for Deep Learning Using Calibrated Regressioncited by 417
- 2021COMBO: Conservative Offline Model-Based Policy Optimizationcited by 365
- 2022A Survey on Offline Reinforcement Learning: Taxonomy, Review, and Open Problemscited by 228
- 2018Visual Foresight: Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Robotic Controlcited by 220
- 2018Model-Based Reinforcement Learning via Meta-Policy Optimizationcited by 99
- 2019Data Efficient Reinforcement Learning for Legged Robotscited by 60
- 2019An Optimistic Perspective on Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 37
- 2022Model-Based Offline Reinforcement Learning with Pessimism-Modulated Dynamics Beliefcited by 22
- 2024Learning to Walk from Three Minutes of Real-World Data with Semi-structured Dynamics Modelscited by 14
- 2024SUMO: Search-Based Uncertainty Estimation for Model-Based Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 12
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 3; 2026: 12.
15 papers.
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- 2025A Survey: Learning Embodied Intelligence from Physical Simulators and World Modelscited by 50
- 2026World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AIcited by 46
- 2025First Order Model-Based RL through Decoupled Backpropagationcited by 3
- 2026World Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Methodologies, Reasoning Paradigms, and Applicationscited by 3
- 2025Learning Soft Robotic Dynamics with Active Explorationcited by 2
- 2026Robots Need More than VLA and World Modelscited by 2
- 2026World-Action Models for Robot Learning and Control: A Surveycited by 1
- 2026Coupled Local and Global World Models for Efficient First Order RLcited by 0
- 2026Hidden States as Value Gradients: The Pontryagin Structure of Recurrent Policiescited by 0
- 2026All Models are Wrong, Knowing Where is Useful: On Model Uncertainty in Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
- 2026TRW: TRACE-RealWorld---An Auditable Consistency Contract for World Models as Materialized Viewscited by 0
- 2026DreamLedger: Where to Refuse World-Model Imagination Using Execution-Settled Creditcited by 0
3 more
- 2026From Static Policies to Adaptive Priors in Offline Reinforcement Learning26 Sep 2026
- 2026Adaptive Rollout Truncation Based on Epistemic Uncertainty for Efficient Offline World Model Training18 Sep 2026
- 2026World-Action Models for Robot Learning and Control: A Survey13 Sep 2026
- 2026ConfAL-WM: Confidence-Guided Active Learning for Action-Conditioned World Models26 Aug 2026
- 2026DreamLedger: Where to Refuse World-Model Imagination Using Execution-Settled Credit24 Aug 2026
- 2026TRW: TRACE-RealWorld---An Auditable Consistency Contract for World Models as Materialized Views24 Jul 2026
- 2026Robots Need More than VLA and World Models4 Jun 2026
- 2026All Models are Wrong, Knowing Where is Useful: On Model Uncertainty in Reinforcement Learning31 May 2026
- 2026World Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Methodologies, Reasoning Paradigms, and Applications28 May 2026
- 2026World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AI12 May 2026
- 2026Hidden States as Value Gradients: The Pontryagin Structure of Recurrent Policies6 May 2026
- 2026Coupled Local and Global World Models for Efficient First Order RL5 Feb 2026
3 more
- 2025A Survey: Learning Embodied Intelligence from Physical Simulators and World Modelscited by 50
- 2026World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AIcited by 46
- 2026World Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Methodologies, Reasoning Paradigms, and Applicationscited by 3
- 2026Robots Need More than VLA and World Modelscited by 2
- 2026World-Action Models for Robot Learning and Control: A Surveycited by 1
- 2026Coupled Local and Global World Models for Efficient First Order RLcited by 0
- 2026TRW: TRACE-RealWorld---An Auditable Consistency Contract for World Models as Materialized Viewscited by 0
- 2026DreamLedger: Where to Refuse World-Model Imagination Using Execution-Settled Creditcited by 0
- 2026ConfAL-WM: Confidence-Guided Active Learning for Action-Conditioned World Modelscited by 0
- 2026Adaptive Rollout Truncation Based on Epistemic Uncertainty for Efficient Offline World Model Trainingcited by 0
- 2026Adaptive Rollout Truncation Based on Epistemic Uncertainty for Efficient Offline World Model Training18 Sep 2026
- 2026World-Action Models for Robot Learning and Control: A Survey13 Sep 2026
- 2026ConfAL-WM: Confidence-Guided Active Learning for Action-Conditioned World Models26 Aug 2026
- 2026DreamLedger: Where to Refuse World-Model Imagination Using Execution-Settled Credit24 Aug 2026
- 2026TRW: TRACE-RealWorld---An Auditable Consistency Contract for World Models as Materialized Views24 Jul 2026
- 2026Robots Need More than VLA and World Models4 Jun 2026
- 2026World Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Methodologies, Reasoning Paradigms, and Applications28 May 2026
- 2026World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AI12 May 2026
- 2026Coupled Local and Global World Models for Efficient First Order RL5 Feb 2026
- 2025A Survey: Learning Embodied Intelligence from Physical Simulators and World Models1 Jul 2025
- 2025First Order Model-Based RL through Decoupled Backpropagationcited by 3
- 2025Learning Soft Robotic Dynamics with Active Explorationcited by 2
- 2026Hidden States as Value Gradients: The Pontryagin Structure of Recurrent Policiescited by 0
- 2026All Models are Wrong, Knowing Where is Useful: On Model Uncertainty in Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
- 2026All Models are Wrong, Knowing Where is Useful: On Model Uncertainty in Reinforcement Learning31 May 2026
- 2026Hidden States as Value Gradients: The Pontryagin Structure of Recurrent Policies6 May 2026
- 2025Learning Soft Robotic Dynamics with Active Exploration31 Oct 2025
- 2025First Order Model-Based RL through Decoupled Backpropagation29 Aug 2025
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2023Finetuning Offline World Models in the Real World
- 2025Accelerating Model-Based Reinforcement Learning with State-Space World Models
- 2024MOTO: Offline Pre-training to Online Fine-tuning for Model-based Robot Learning
- 2021A Workflow for Offline Model-Free Robotic Reinforcement Learning
- 2025Policy-Driven World Model Adaptation for Robust Offline Model-based Reinforcement Learning
- 2022Real World Offline Reinforcement Learning with Realistic Data Source
- 2023H2O+: An Improved Framework for Hybrid Offline-and-Online RL with Dynamics Gaps
- 2026Beyond Static Datasets: Robust Offline Policy Optimization via Vetted Synthetic Transitions