mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

VLA-Touch: Enhancing Vision-Language-Action Models with Dual-Level Tactile Feedback

arXiv 2507.17294 ↗First posted 23 Jul 2025cs.RO cs.LGcited by 37

On the map: Vision-language-action models → Tactile, force-aware and humanoid VLA

Abstract (arXiv)

Tactile feedback is generally recognized to be crucial for effective interaction with the physical world. However, state-of-the-art Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models lack the ability to interpret and use tactile signals, limiting their effectiveness in contact-rich tasks. Incorporating tactile feedback into these systems is challenging due to the absence of large multi-modal datasets. We present VLA-Touch, an approach that enhances generalist robot policies with tactile sensing without fine-tuning the base VLA. Our method introduces two key innovations: (1) a pipeline that leverages a pretrained tactile-language model that provides semantic tactile feedback for high-level task planning, and (2) a diffusion-based controller that refines VLA-generated actions with tactile signals for contact-rich manipulation. Through real-world experiments, we demonstrate that our dual-level integration of tactile feedback improves task planning efficiency while enhancing execution precision. Code is open-sourced at hrefhttps://github.com/jxbi1010/VLA-Touchthis URL.

Key facts. Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Tactile, force-aware and humanoid VLA, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 29 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Jul 2025.

Builds on

29 of 39 references.

References · 29

  1. 2023DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervisioncited by 7,764
  2. 2023Sigmoid Loss for Language Image Pre-Trainingcited by 3,048
  3. 2022Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Modelscited by 2,997
  4. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,777
  5. 2022Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordancescited by 2,302
  6. 2023PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Modelcited by 2,037
  7. 2022RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scalecited by 2,007
  8. 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,653
  9. 2024Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policycited by 1,427
  10. 2025GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robotscited by 1,167
  11. 2024RDT-1B: a Diffusion Foundation Model for Bimanual Manipulationcited by 670
  12. 2023Vision-Language Foundation Models as Effective Robot Imitatorscited by 344
17 more
  1. 2024GR-2: A Generative Video-Language-Action Model with Web-Scale Knowledge for Robot Manipulationcited by 290
  2. 2020DIGIT: A Novel Design for a Low-Cost Compact High-Resolution Tactile Sensor with Application to In-Hand Manipulationcited by 164
  3. 2025Reactive Diffusion Policy: Slow-Fast Visual-Tactile Policy Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulationcited by 103
  4. 2024A Touch, Vision, and Language Dataset for Multimodal Alignmentcited by 68
  5. 20243D-ViTac: Learning Fine-Grained Manipulation with Visuo-Tactile Sensingcited by 67
  6. 2024Sparsh: Self-supervised touch representations for vision-based tactile sensingcited by 61
  7. 2025AnyTouch: Learning Unified Static-Dynamic Representation across Multiple Visuo-tactile Sensorscited by 46
  8. 2025TLA: Tactile-Language-Action Model for Contact-Rich Manipulationcited by 46
  9. 2024Octopi: Object Property Reasoning with Large Tactile-Language Modelscited by 45
  10. 2024Transferable Tactile Transformers for Representation Learning Across Diverse Sensors and Taskscited by 44
  11. 2025Beyond Sight: Finetuning Generalist Robot Policies with Heterogeneous Sensors via Language Groundingcited by 40
  12. 2024FoAR: Force-Aware Reactive Policy for Contact-Rich Robotic Manipulationcited by 32
  13. 2024Don't Start from Scratch: Behavioral Refinement via Interpolant-based Policy Diffusioncited by 21
  14. 2024RoboPack: Learning Tactile-Informed Dynamics Models for Dense Packingcited by 18
  15. 2025PolyTouch: A Robust Multi-Modal Tactile Sensor for Contact-rich Manipulation Using Tactile-Diffusion Policiescited by 13
  16. 2022DenseTact 2.0: Optical Tactile Sensor for Shape and Force Reconstructioncited by 8
  17. 2025On the Importance of Tactile Sensing for Imitation Learning: A Case Study on Robotic Match Lightingcited by 4

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 6; 2026: 31.

37 papers.

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By area:

  1. 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Surveycited by 66
  2. 2026OmniVTA: Visuo-Tactile World Modeling for Contact-Rich Robotic Manipulationcited by 33
  3. 2026RLDX-1 Technical Reportcited by 25
  4. 2026Adaptive Action Chunking at Inference-time for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 24
  5. 2025EVOLVE-VLA: Test-Time Training from Environment Feedback for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 20
  6. 2026TacVLA: Contact-Aware Tactile Fusion for Robust Vision-Language-Action Manipulationcited by 17
  7. 2026Dream-Tac: A Unified Tactile World Action Model for Contact-Rich Robot Manipulationcited by 17
  8. 2026FD-VLA: Force-Distilled Vision-Language-Action Model for Contact-Rich Manipulationcited by 15
  9. 2026FAVLA: A Force-Adaptive Fast-Slow VLA model for Contact-Rich Robotic Manipulationcited by 14
  10. 2026VTAM: Video-Tactile-Action Models for Complex Physical Interaction Beyond VLAscited by 14
  11. 2026TaF-VLA: Tactile-Force Alignment in Vision-Language-Action Models for Force-aware Manipulationcited by 11
  12. 2026TacForeSight: Force-Guided Tactile World Model for Contact-Rich Manipulationcited by 10
25 more
  1. 2026T-Rex: Tactile-Reactive Dexterous Manipulationcited by 10
  2. 2026HapticVLA: Contact-Rich Manipulation via Vision-Language-Action Model without Inference-Time Tactile Sensingcited by 9
  3. 2026AT-VLA: Adaptive Tactile Injection for Enhanced Feedback Reaction in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 9
  4. 2025End-to-End Dexterous Arm-Hand VLA Policies via Shared Autonomy: VR Teleoperation Augmented by Autonomous Hand VLA Policy for Efficient Data Collectioncited by 8
  5. 2025OmniVLA: Physically-Grounded Multimodal VLA with Unified Multi-Sensor Perception for Robotic Manipulationcited by 7
  6. 2026CRAFT: Adapting VLA Models to Contact-rich Manipulation via Force-aware Curriculum Fine-tuningcited by 7
  7. 2025An Anatomy of Vision-Language-Action Models: From Modules to Milestones and Challengescited by 4
  8. 2026E-VLA: Event-Augmented Vision-Language-Action Model for Dark and Blurred Scenescited by 4
  9. 2026TacCoRL: Integrating Tactile Feedback into VLA via Simulationcited by 3
  10. 2026TacWAM: Anchor-Guided World Action Model with Mechanics-Aware Tactile Predictioncited by 3
  11. 202510 Open Challenges Steering the Future of Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 2
  12. 2026Tactile Modality Fusion for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 2
  13. 2026Modular Sensory Stream for Integrating Physical Feedback in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 2
  14. 2026Tactile-based Multimodal Fusion in Embodied Intelligence: A Survey of Vision, Language, and Contact-Driven Paradigmscited by 2
  15. 2026Seeing Touch from Motion: A Unified Modality-Aware Visuo-Tactile Policy with Tactile Motion Correlationcited by 2
  16. 2026SoftVTBench: A Safety-Aware Visuo-Tactile Benchmark for Physically Constrained Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects (Early Version)cited by 2
  17. 2026N0-TWAM: Scaling Tactile-Native World-Action Model for Contact-Rich Manipulationcited by 2
  18. 2026KineVLA: Towards Kinematics-Aware Vision-Language-Action Models with Bi-Level Action Decompositioncited by 1
  19. 2026CoRAL: Contact-Rich Adaptive LLM-based Control for Robotic Manipulationcited by 1
  20. 2026MuseVLA: An Adaptive Multimodal Sensing Vision-Language-Action Model for Robotic Manipulationcited by 1
  21. 2026TacForcing: Streaming Action Generation with Execution-Time Tactile Feedbackcited by 1
  22. 2026CoFreeVLA: Short-Horizon Collision-Free Dual-Arm Manipulation via Vision-Language-Action Model and Risk Estimationcited by 0
  23. 2026Let Robots Feel Your Touch: Visuo-Tactile Cortical Alignment for Embodied Mirror Resonancecited by 0
  24. 2026Demystifying When and Why VLAs Fail in Contact-Rich Tasks and How to Fix Themcited by 0
  25. 2026Uni-VLaT: Whole-Body Tactile Adaptation of VLA Policies for Humanoid Loco-Manipulationcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Tactile-VLA: Unlocking Vision-Language-Action Model's Physical Knowledge for Tactile Generalization
  2. 2026UniTacVLA: Unified Tactile Understanding and Prediction in Vision Language Action Models
  3. 2026SimpleTouch: Can Vision-Language-Action Models Master Contact-Rich Manipulation Without Tactile Policy Pretraining?
  4. 2026N0-VTLA: Scaling Vision-Tactile-Language-Action Model with Latent Tactile Tokens
  5. 2026ForeTac-VLA: A Forecasting-Based Tactile-Vision-Language-Action Model for Contact-Rich Robotic Manipulation
  6. 2026OpenViTac: Learning and Benchmarking Visuo-Tactile Policies in a Unified Sim-and-Real Framework ↗
  7. 2026TORL-VLA: Tactile Guided Online Reinforcement Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulation
  8. 2026τ: Learning Touch-Augmented Vision-Language-Action Models from Future Visual Supervision