mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

CollabVLA: Self-Reflective Vision-Language-Action Model Dreaming Together with Human

arXiv 2509.14889 ↗First posted 18 Sep 2025cs.ROcited by 6

On the map: Vision-language-action models → Generalist VLA models and benchmarks

Abstract (arXiv)

In this work, we present CollabVLA, a self-reflective vision-language-action framework that transforms a standard visuomotor policy into a collaborative assistant. CollabVLA tackles key limitations of prior VLAs, including domain overfitting, non-interpretable reasoning, and the high latency of auxiliary generative models, by integrating VLM-based reflective reasoning with diffusion-based action generation under a mixture-of-experts design. Through a two-stage training recipe of action grounding and reflection tuning, it supports explicit self-reflection and proactively solicits human guidance when confronted with uncertainty or repeated failure. It cuts normalized Time by ~2x and Dream counts by ~4x vs. generative agents, achieving higher success rates, improved interpretability, and balanced low latency compared with existing methods. This work takes a pioneering step toward shifting VLAs from opaque controllers to genuinely assistive agents capable of reasoning, acting, and collaborating with humans.

Key facts. Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Generalist VLA models and benchmarks, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 39 of its 40 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Sep 2025.

Builds on

39 of 40 references.

Closest ancestors · 6

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025villa-X: Enhancing Latent Action Modeling in Vision-Language-Action Models31 Jul
  2. 2025Interleave-VLA: Enhancing Robot Manipulation with Interleaved Image-Text Instructions4 May
  3. 2024CogACT: A Foundational Vision-Language-Action Model for Synergizing Cognition and Action in Robotic Manipulation29 Nov
  4. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Control31 Oct
  5. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model13 Jun
  6. 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control28 Jul

Other references · 33

  1. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,380
  2. 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,459
  3. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  4. 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,626
  5. 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 6,054
  6. 2022Flamingo: a Visual Language Model for Few-Shot Learningcited by 4,386
  7. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,276
  8. 2024Qwen2-VL: Enhancing Vision-Language Model's Perception of the World at Any Resolutioncited by 4,234
  9. 2023Sigmoid Loss for Language Image Pre-Trainingcited by 3,109
  10. 2024LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfercited by 2,719
  11. 2017FiLM: Visual Reasoning with a General Conditioning Layercited by 2,333
  12. 2022RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scalecited by 2,061
21 more
  1. 2024Expanding Performance Boundaries of Open-Source Multimodal Models with Model, Data, and Test-Time Scalingcited by 1,599
  2. 2023LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learningcited by 1,410
  3. 2024DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Datasetcited by 852
  4. 2023BridgeData V2: A Dataset for Robot Learning at Scalecited by 657
  5. 2024Evaluating Real-World Robot Manipulation Policies in Simulationcited by 495
  6. 2025CoT-VLA: Visual Chain-of-Thought Reasoning for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 451
  7. 2025UniVLA: Learning to Act Anywhere with Task-centric Latent Actionscited by 410
  8. 2025AgiBot World Colosseo: A Large-scale Manipulation Platform for Scalable and Intelligent Embodied Systemscited by 405
  9. 2023Vision-Language Foundation Models as Effective Robot Imitatorscited by 349
  10. 2024Robotic Control via Embodied Chain-of-Thought Reasoningcited by 346
  11. 2023Robots That Ask For Help: Uncertainty Alignment for Large Language Model Plannerscited by 308
  12. 2024ManiSkill3: GPU Parallelized Robotics Simulation and Rendering for Generalizable Embodied AIcited by 229
  13. 2024RoboDreamer: Learning Compositional World Models for Robot Imaginationcited by 195
  14. 2024Multimodal Diffusion Transformer: Learning Versatile Behavior from Multimodal Goalscited by 134
  15. 2025ChatVLA: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Robot Control with Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 113
  16. 2025InstructVLA: Vision-Language-Action Instruction Tuning from Understanding to Manipulationcited by 72
  17. 2024Diffusion-VLA: Generalizable and Interpretable Robot Foundation Model via Self-Generated Reasoningcited by 57
  18. 2025CLAM: Continuous Latent Action Models for Robot Learning from Unlabeled Demonstrationscited by 41
  19. 2024GR-MG: Leveraging Partially Annotated Data via Multi-Modal Goal-Conditioned Policycited by 39
  20. 2024Introspective Planning: Aligning Robots' Uncertainty with Inherent Task Ambiguitycited by 27
  21. 2024AssistantX: An LLM-Powered Proactive Assistant in Collaborative Human-Populated Environmentcited by 3

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 2; 2026: 4.

6 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025MergeVLA: Cross-Skill Model Merging Toward a Generalist Vision-Language-Action Agent
  2. 2025An Anatomy of Vision-Language-Action Models: From Modules to Milestones and Challenges
  3. 2026StarVLA: A Lego-like Codebase for Vision-Language-Action Model Developing
  4. 2025Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Embodied Manipulation: A Systematic Survey
  5. 2026EmbodiedSkills: A Unified Framework for Orchestrating, Training, and Deploying VLA Agents
  6. 2026DREAMSTEER: Latent World Models Can Steer VLA Policies During Deployment Without Any Finetuning
  7. 2026Action Draft and Verify: A Self-Verifying Framework for Vision-Language-Action Model
  8. 2026Goal2Skill: Long-Horizon Manipulation with Adaptive Planning and Reflection