# RMBench: Memory-Dependent Robotic Manipulation Benchmark with Insights into Policy Design

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01229 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01229/

## Key facts

- Cited by 45 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 36 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06180/) (2023)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13705/) (2023)
- [LlamaFactory: Unified Efficient Fine-Tuning of 100+ Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13372/) (2024)
- [LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03310/) (2023)
- [SAPIEN: A SimulAted Part-based Interactive ENvironment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08515/) (2020)
- [RoboTwin 2.0: A Scalable Data Generator and Benchmark with Strong Domain Randomization for Robust Bimanual Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18088/) (2025)
- [Evaluating Real-World Robot Manipulation Policies in Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.05941/) (2024)
- [CogACT: A Foundational Vision-Language-Action Model for Synergizing Cognition and Action in Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.19650/) (2024)
- [RoboCasa: Large-Scale Simulation of Everyday Tasks for Generalist Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02523/) (2024)
- [TinyVLA: Towards Fast, Data-Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12514/) (2024)
- [X-VLA: Soft-Prompted Transformer as Scalable Cross-Embodiment Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10274/) (2025)
- [Motus: A Unified Latent Action World Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.13030/) (2025)
- [DexVLA: Vision-Language Model with Plug-In Diffusion Expert for General Robot Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.05855/) (2025)
- [MemoryVLA: Perceptual-Cognitive Memory in Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19236/) (2025)
- [BEHAVIOR-1K: A Human-Centered, Embodied AI Benchmark with 1,000 Everyday Activities and Realistic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09227/) (2024)
- [RoboTwin: Dual-Arm Robot Benchmark with Generative Digital Twins](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13059/) (2025)
- [Discrete Diffusion VLA: Bringing Discrete Diffusion to Action Decoding in Vision-Language-Action Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20072/) (2025)
- [MemER: Scaling Up Memory for Robot Control via Experience Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.20328/) (2025)
- [SAM2Act: Integrating Visual Foundation Model with A Memory Architecture for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.18564/) (2025)
- [ManiCM: Real-time 3D Diffusion Policy via Consistency Model for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01586/) (2024)
- [Memory, Benchmark & Robots: A Benchmark for Solving Complex Tasks with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10550/) (2025)
- [G3Flow: Generative 3D Semantic Flow for Pose-aware and Generalizable Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.18369/) (2024)
- [RoboCerebra: A Large-scale Benchmark for Long-horizon Robotic Manipulation Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.06677/) (2025)
- [HiF-VLA: Hindsight, Insight and Foresight through Motion Representation for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09928/) (2025)
- [Dense Policy: Bidirectional Autoregressive Learning of Actions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13217/) (2025)
- [UniVTAC: A Unified Simulation Platform for Visuo-Tactile Manipulation Data Generation, Learning, and Benchmarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10093/) (2026)
- [AutoBio: A Simulation and Benchmark for Robotic Automation in Digital Biology Laboratory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.14030/) (2025)
- [Expertise need not monopolize: Action-Specialized Mixture of Experts for Vision-Language-Action Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14300/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 45)

- [RoboDojo: A Unified Sim-and-Real Benchmark for Comprehensive Evaluation of Generalist Robot Manipulation Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.04434/) (2026)
- [EventVLA: Event-Driven Visual Evidence Memory for Long-Horizon Vision-Language-Action Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20092/) (2026)
- [MemoryWAM: Efficient World Action Modeling with Persistent Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20562/) (2026)
- [World-Language-Action Model for Unified World Modeling, Language Reasoning, and Action Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05979/) (2026)
- [Goal2Skill: Long-Horizon Manipulation with Adaptive Planning and Reflection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.13942/) (2026)
- [MemoryVLA++: Temporal Modeling via Memory and Imagination in Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09827/) (2026)
- [HiMem-WAM: Hierarchical Memory-Gated World Action Models for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.10363/) (2026)
- [μVLA: On Recurrent Memory for Partially Observable Manipulation in VLA Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.12497/) (2026)
- [NativeMEM: Native Memory Compression for Long-Horizon Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06678/) (2026)
- [Data Pyramid for Embodied Manipulation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.24744/) (2026)
- [ManiTwin: Scaling Data-Generation-Ready Digital Object Dataset to 100K](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16866/) (2026)
- [DIM-WAM: World-Action Modeling with Diverse Historical Event Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.27677/) (2026)
- [Cortex: A Bidirectionally Aligned Embodied Agent Framework for Long-horizon Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.05377/) (2026)
- [SeedPolicy: Horizon Scaling via Self-Evolving Diffusion Policy for Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05117/) (2026)
- [SimpleMemVLA: A Simple but Effective Native-Video Memory for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05533/) (2026)
- [WatchAct: A Benchmark for Behavior-Grounded Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.26443/) (2026)
- [ChainVLA: Chaining Vision-Language-Action Queries through a Unified Execution State for Long-Horizon Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02326/) (2026)
- [2AM: Grounding Agent-Side Memory as Guidance for Steerable Action Models in Long-Horizon Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.11308/) (2026)
- [Memory as Plans: World-Action Modeling with Memory-Grounded Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.11561/) (2026)
- [BridgeVLA++: A Data-Efficient, Generalizable, and Memory-Augmented Vision-Language-Action Framework for 3D Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.05042/) (2026)
- [SparkVLA: Stop-Aware Hierarchical VLA with Adaptive Action Chunking for Long-Horizon Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.16172/) (2026)
- [RoboSPA: Can VLA Models Go Beyond Simple Scenes and Short-Horizon Tasks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05324/) (2026)
- [MEMOBench: A Process Level Memory Benchmark for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.07047/) (2026)
- [MoPA: Coordinated Mobile Manipulation via Subsystem-Specific Perception Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.12081/) (2026)
- [MemBodied: Recurrent Associative Memory for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.28256/) (2026)
- [AnnotateAnything: Automatic Annotation of 3D Assets for Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.17446/) (2026)
- [RoboMME-Interference: Benchmarking Robot Memory Under Interference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22338/) (2026)
- [Situation Perception: A Necessary Primitive to Artificial Superintelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.30481/) (2026)
- [Towards Trustworthy Embodied Intelligence: A Systems Framework and Graded Trustworthiness Levels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.26121/) (2026)
- [WorldToken: Time-First Sequence Modeling for Robotic Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22591/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Robotic manipulation policies have made rapid progress in recent years, yet most existing approaches give limited consideration to memory capabilities. Consequently, they struggle to solve tasks that require reasoning over historical observations and maintaining task-relevant information over time, which are common requirements in real-world manipulation scenarios. Although several memory-aware policies have been proposed, systematic evaluation of memory-dependent manipulation remains underexplored, and the relationship between architectural design choices and memory performance is still not well understood. To address this gap, we introduce RMBench, a simulation benchmark comprising 9 manipulation tasks that span multiple levels of memory complexity, enabling systematic evaluation of policy memory capabilities. We further propose Mem-0, a modular manipulation policy with explicit memory components designed to support controlled ablation studies. Through extensive simulation and real-world experiments, we identify memory-related limitations in existing policies and provide empirical insights into how architectural design choices influence memory performance. The website is available at https://rmbench.github.io/.