Offline Discovery of Interpretable Skills from Multi-Task Trajectories
On the map: Offline RL and imitation learning from data → Robot manipulation imitation learning
Abstract (arXiv)
Hierarchical Imitation Learning is a powerful paradigm for acquiring complex robot behaviors from demonstrations. A central challenge, however, lies in discovering reusable skills from long-horizon, multi-task offline data, especially when the data lacks explicit rewards or subtask annotations. In this work, we introduce LOKI, a three-stage end-to-end learning framework designed for offline skill discovery and hierarchical imitation. The framework commences with a two-stage, weakly supervised skill discovery process: Stage one performs coarse, task-aware macro-segmentation by employing an alignment-enforced Vector Quantized VAE guided by weak task labels. Stage two then refines these segments at a micro-level using a self-supervised sequential model, followed by an iterative clustering process to consolidate skill boundaries. The third stage then leverages these precise boundaries to construct a hierarchical policy within an option-based framework-complete with a learned termination condition beta for explicit skill switching. LOKI achieves high success rates on the challenging D4RL Kitchen benchmark and outperforms standard HIL baselines. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the discovered skills are semantically meaningful, aligning with human intuition, and exhibit compositionality by successfully sequencing them to solve a novel, unseen task.
Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Robot manipulation imitation learning, one of 13 directions in Offline RL and imitation learning from data. Builds on 22 of its 26 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Feb 2026.
Builds on
22 of 26 references.
Closest ancestors · 1
Same direction, newest first
- 2019Relay Policy Learning: Solving Long-Horizon Tasks via Imitation and Reinforcement Learning25 Oct
Other references · 21
- 2017Neural Discrete Representation Learningcited by 4,650
- 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 2,993
- 2020Offline Reinforcement Learning: Tutorial, Review, and Perspectives on Open Problemscited by 1,873
- 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,653
- 2020D4RL: Datasets for Deep Data-Driven Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,406
- 2022A Generalist Agentcited by 802
- 2018Diversity is All You Need: Learning Skills without a Reward Functioncited by 734
- 2019Dynamics-Aware Unsupervised Discovery of Skillscited by 308
- 2020OPAL: Offline Primitive Discovery for Accelerating Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 164
- 2023A Survey of Imitation Learning: Algorithms, Recent Developments, and Challengescited by 145
- 2025A Survey on Vision-Language-Action Models: An Action Tokenization Perspectivecited by 96
- 2024Diffusion-VLA: Generalizable and Interpretable Robot Foundation Model via Self-Generated Reasoningcited by 57
9 more
- 2023Reasoning with Latent Diffusion in Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 33
- 2024Deep Generative Models for Offline Policy Learning: Tutorial, Survey, and Perspectives on Future Directionscited by 20
- 2024Full-Order Sampling-Based MPC for Torque-Level Locomotion Control via Diffusion-Style Annealingcited by 20
- 2023Multi-task Hierarchical Adversarial Inverse Reinforcement Learningcited by 15
- 2024DexSkills: Skill Segmentation Using Haptic Data for Learning Autonomous Long-Horizon Robotic Manipulation Taskscited by 9
- 2020Radial basis function kernel optimization for Support Vector Machine classifierscited by 7
- 2022A Unified Algorithm Framework for Unsupervised Discovery of Skills based on Determinantal Point Processcited by 7
- 2022SkillS: Adaptive Skill Sequencing for Efficient Temporally-Extended Explorationcited by 6
- 2022Self-Calibrating Anomaly and Change Detection for Autonomous Inspection Robotscited by 3
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 1.
1 paper.
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2021Bottom-Up Skill Discovery from Unsegmented Demonstrations for Long-Horizon Robot Manipulation
- 2022Learning and Retrieval from Prior Data for Skill-based Imitation Learning
- 2025Learning Semantic Atomic Skills for Multi-Task Robotic Manipulation
- 2025Robust Offline Imitation Learning Through State-level Trajectory Stitching
- 2020Complex Skill Acquisition Through Simple Skill Imitation Learning
- 2023LOTUS: Continual Imitation Learning for Robot Manipulation Through Unsupervised Skill Discovery
- 2026Dual-Process Atomic Skill Learning: Decoupling Semantic Reasoning and Real-Time Control
- 2023Offline Diversity Maximization Under Imitation Constraints