# Learning to Act Through Contact: A Unified View of Multi-Task Robot Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03599 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.03599/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 4 Oct 2025.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [SLowRL: Safe Low-Rank Adaptation Reinforcement Learning for Locomotion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17092/) (2026)
- [Shield-Loco: Shielding Locomotion Policies with Predictive Safety Filtering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.07193/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present a unified framework for multi-task locomotion and manipulation policy learning grounded in a contact-explicit representation. Instead of designing different policies for different tasks, our approach unifies the definition of a task through a sequence of contact goals--desired contact positions, timings, and active end-effectors. This enables leveraging the shared structure across diverse contact-rich tasks, leading to a single policy that can perform a wide range of tasks. In particular, we train a goal-conditioned reinforcement learning (RL) policy to realise given contact plans. We validate our framework on multiple robotic embodiments and tasks: a quadruped performing multiple gaits, a humanoid performing multiple biped and quadrupedal gaits, and a humanoid executing different bimanual object manipulation tasks. Each of these scenarios is controlled by a single policy trained to execute different tasks grounded in contacts, demonstrating versatile and robust behaviours across morphologically distinct systems. Our results show that explicit contact reasoning significantly improves generalisation to unseen scenarios, positioning contact-explicit policy learning as a promising foundation for scalable loco-manipulation. Video available at: https://youtu.be/idHx67oHHU0?si=qZJ7C0ujemXNWgA5