# RESample: A Robust Data Augmentation Framework via Exploratory Sampling for Robotic Manipulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.17640 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17640/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Failure recovery and robustness, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models.
- Builds on 41 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- Vision-language-action models / [Failure recovery and robustness](https://mlsanity.com/vla/failure-recovery-and-robustness/)
- Offline RL and imitation learning from data / [Language-conditioned policies and VLAs](https://mlsanity.com/offlinerl/language-conditioned-policies-and-vlas/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [Soft Actor-Critic: Off-Policy Maximum Entropy Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Stochastic Actor](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.01290/) (2018)
- [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)
- [π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24164/) (2024)
- [RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06817/) (2022)
- [Offline Reinforcement Learning: Tutorial, Review, and Perspectives on Open Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.01643/) (2020)
- [Conservative Q-Learning for Offline Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04779/) (2020)
- [π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16054/) (2025)
- [Concrete Problems in AI Safety](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06565/) (2016)
- [Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13705/) (2023)
- [Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06907/) (2017)
- [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)
- [Gemma: Open Models Based on Gemini Research and Technology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08295/) (2024)
- [Fine-Tuning Vision-Language-Action Models: Optimizing Speed and Success](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19645/) (2025)
- [Open X-Embodiment: Robotic Learning Datasets and RT-X Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08864/) (2023)
- [Solving Rubik's Cube with a Robot Hand](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.07113/) (2019)
- [RDT-1B: a Diffusion Foundation Model for Bimanual Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07864/) (2024)
- [Sim-to-Real Transfer of Robotic Control with Dynamics Randomization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.06537/) (2017)
- [FAST: Efficient Action Tokenization for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.09747/) (2025)
- [BridgeData V2: A Dataset for Robot Learning at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12952/) (2023)
- [Image Augmentation Is All You Need: Regularizing Deep Reinforcement Learning from Pixels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.13649/) (2020)
- [Reinforcement Learning with Augmented Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.14990/) (2020)
- [Kernel Mean Embedding of Distributions: A Review and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.09522/) (2016)
- [MimicGen: A Data Generation System for Scalable Robot Learning using Human Demonstrations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.17596/) (2023)
- [Challenges of Real-World Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.12901/) (2019)
- [Causal Confusion in Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11979/) (2019)
- [Cal-QL: Calibrated Offline RL Pre-Training for Efficient Online Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05479/) (2023)
- [VLA-RL: Towards Masterful and General Robotic Manipulation with Scalable Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18719/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Towards trustworthy agentic AI: a comprehensive survey of safety, robustness, privacy, and system security](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.23989/) (2026)
- [Escaping the Diversity Trap in Robotic Manipulation via Anchor-Centric Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07381/) (2026)
- [WorldSample: Closed-loop Real-robot RL with World Modelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.02431/) (2026)
- [ExToken: Structured Exploration for Efficient Vision-Language-Action Reinforcement Fine-tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.12931/) (2026)
- [How (and How Not) to Use Data Augmentation in VLA Post-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.05994/) (2026)
- [Many Ways to Succeed: Diversity-Driven RL Fine-Tuning for VLA Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.09943/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have shown strong manipulation capability when trained with large-scale imitation learning datasets. However, these datasets that predominantly consist of successful trajectories rarely provide the corrective supervision required when execution deviates from standard demonstrations. During deployment, these physical deviations lead to the distributional shift that drives policy to failure scenarios, yet missing failure recovery data prevents policy from correcting these execution deviations. To address this failure recovery problem, we propose a coverage-guided data augmentation framework RESample to actively supplement demonstration datasets for failure recovery. Specifically, to guide the augmentation and generate failure modes that possibly appear in the real world, RESample trains a conservative coverage function to identify failure cases that reside within the actual data distribution but are missing in the standard successful demonstrations. Guided by the evaluated coverage discrepancy, we perform exploratory sampling to actively sample exploration behaviors followed by recovery actions, extending the coverage of training data with failure recovery trajectories. With the augmented trajectory, the refined policy, which deviated in real settings, can recover from failure. Experiments on the LIBERO benchmark and real-world manipulation tasks show that RESample consistently improves policy success rates, achieving up to 12% absolute gain with no more than 20% additional samples.