# Pure Vision Language Action (VLA) Models: A Comprehensive Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.19012 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19012/

## Key facts

- Cited by 49 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Embodied and 3D vision-language models, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models.
- Builds on 287 of its 311 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Sep 2025.

## Placed in

- Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models / [Embodied and 3D vision-language models](https://mlsanity.com/mllm/embodied-and-3d-vision-language-models/)
- Vision-language-action models / [Generalist VLA models and benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/vla/generalist-vla-models-and-benchmarks/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 287)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10683/) (2019)
- [Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08485/) (2023)
- [BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12597/) (2023)
- [Qwen2.5-VL Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13923/) (2025)
- [nuScenes: A multimodal dataset for autonomous driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.11027/) (2019)
- [The Cityscapes Dataset for Semantic Urban Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.01685/) (2016)
- [Flamingo: a Visual Language Model for Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.14198/) (2022)
- [BLIP: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training for Unified Vision-Language Understanding and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12086/) (2022)
- [RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15818/) (2023)
- [OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09246/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04838/) (2019)
- [CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03938/) (2017)
- [π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24164/) (2024)
- [ViLBERT: Pretraining Task-Agnostic Visiolinguistic Representations for Vision-and-Language Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.02265/) (2019)
- [PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03378/) (2023)
- [RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06817/) (2022)
- [π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16054/) (2025)
- [Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13705/) (2023)
- [Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12213/) (2024)
- [LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03310/) (2023)
- [VisualBERT: A Simple and Performant Baseline for Vision and Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.03557/) (2019)
- [BDD100K: A Diverse Driving Dataset for Heterogeneous Multitask Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04687/) (2018)
- [GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14734/) (2025)
- [Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10897/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 49)

- [A Survey on Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24795/) (2025)
- [VLSA: Vision-Language-Action Models with Plug-and-Play Safety Constraint Layer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.11891/) (2025)
- [Video-STAR: Reinforcing Open-Vocabulary Action Recognition with Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08480/) (2025)
- [FASTER: Rethinking Real-Time Flow VLAs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19199/) (2026)
- [When Alignment Fails: Multimodal Adversarial Attacks on Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16203/) (2025)
- [Reasoning-VLA: A Fast and General Vision-Language-Action Reasoning Model for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19912/) (2025)
- [Vision-Language-Action Safety: Threats, Challenges, Evaluations, and Mechanisms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.23775/) (2026)
- [DyQ-VLA: Temporal-Dynamic-Aware Quantization for Embodied Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.07904/) (2026)
- [STRONG-VLA: Decoupled Robustness Learning for Vision-Language-Action Models under Multimodal Perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10055/) (2026)
- [What if Agents Could Imagine? Reinforcing Open-Vocabulary HOI Comprehension through Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11499/) (2026)
- [Vision-Language-Action in Robotics: A Survey of Datasets, Benchmarks, and Data Engines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.23001/) (2026)
- [CoC-VLA: Delving into Adversarial Domain Transfer for Explainable Autonomous Driving via Chain-of-Causality Visual-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19914/) (2025)
- [RL-VLA3: A Flexible and Asynchronous Reinforcement Learning Framework for VLA Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.05765/) (2026)
- [Mean-Flow based One-Step Vision-Language-Action](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01469/) (2026)
- [Point Tracking Improves World Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.23856/) (2026)
- [VLA-Thinker: Boosting Vision-Language-Action Models through Thinking-with-Image Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14523/) (2026)
- [ActDistill: General Action-Guided Self-Derived Distillation for Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.18082/) (2025)
- [VGAS: Value-Guided Action-Chunk Selection for Few-Shot Vision-Language-Action Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07399/) (2026)
- [Open-Loop Planning, Closed-Loop Verification: Speculative Verification for VLA](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02965/) (2026)
- [Pre-VLA: Preemptive Runtime Verification for Reliable Vision-Language-Action and World-Model Rollouts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22446/) (2026)
- [FLARE: A Failure-Aware Framework for Autonomous Correction and Recovery in Visual-Language Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.26645/) (2026)
- [An Anatomy of Vision-Language-Action Models: From Modules to Milestones and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.11362/) (2025)
- [Sword: Style-Robust World Models as Simulators via Dynamic Latent Bootstrapping for VLA Policy Post-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07288/) (2026)
- [Escaping the Diversity Trap in Robotic Manipulation via Anchor-Centric Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07381/) (2026)
- [Dejavu: Towards Experience Feedback Learning for Embodied Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10181/) (2025)
- [Embodied Interpretability: Linking Causal Understanding to Generalization in Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.00321/) (2026)
- [IndusAgent: Reinforcing Open-Vocabulary Industrial Anomaly Detection with Agentic Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20682/) (2026)
- [LiMT: A Multi-task Liver Image Benchmark Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19889/) (2025)
- [Keyframe-Guided Structured Rewards for Reinforcement Learning in Long-Horizon Laboratory Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.00719/) (2026)
- [ProGAL-VLA: Grounded Alignment through Prospective Reasoning in Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09824/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The emergence of Vision Language Action (VLA) models marks a paradigm shift from traditional policy-based control to generalized robotics, reframing Vision Language Models (VLMs) from passive sequence generators into active agents for manipulation and decision-making in complex, dynamic environments. This survey delves into advanced VLA methods, aiming to provide a clear taxonomy and a systematic, comprehensive review of existing research. It presents a comprehensive analysis of VLA applications across different scenarios and classifies VLA approaches into several paradigms: autoregression-based, diffusion-based, reinforcement-based, hybrid, and specialized methods; while examining their motivations, core strategies, and implementations in detail. In addition, foundational datasets, benchmarks, and simulation platforms are introduced. Building on the current VLA landscape, the review further proposes perspectives on key challenges and future directions to advance research in VLA models and generalizable robotics. By synthesizing insights from over three hundred recent studies, this survey maps the contours of this rapidly evolving field and highlights the opportunities and challenges that will shape the development of scalable, general-purpose VLA methods.