# Cross-Hand Latent Representation for Vision-Language-Action Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.10158 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.10158/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Human-video and latent-action pretraining, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models.
- Builds on 66 of its 70 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Mar 2026.

## Placed in

- Vision-language-action models / [Human-video and latent-action pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/vla/human-video-and-latent-action-pretraining/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 66)

- [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)
- [π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24164/) (2024)
- [Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13705/) (2023)
- [PaliGemma: A versatile 3B VLM for transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07726/) (2024)
- [UniVLA: Learning to Act Anywhere with Task-centric Latent Actions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.06111/) (2025)
- [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)
- [DexVLA: Vision-Language Model with Plug-In Diffusion Expert for General Robot Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.05855/) (2025)
- [Scaling Cross-Embodied Learning: One Policy for Manipulation, Navigation, Locomotion and Aviation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.11812/) (2024)
- [XIRL: Cross-embodiment Inverse Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03911/) (2021)
- [ForceVLA: Enhancing VLA Models with a Force-aware MoE for Contact-rich Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22159/) (2025)
- [Universal Actions for Enhanced Embodied Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.10105/) (2025)
- [Bunny-VisionPro: Real-Time Bimanual Dexterous Teleoperation for Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.03162/) (2024)
- [HOMIE: Humanoid Loco-Manipulation with Isomorphic Exoskeleton Cockpit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13013/) (2025)
- [Dita: Scaling Diffusion Transformer for Generalist Vision-Language-Action Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19757/) (2025)
- [Scalable Vision-Language-Action Model Pretraining for Robotic Manipulation with Real-Life Human Activity Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.21571/) (2025)
- [DexUMI: Using Human Hand as the Universal Manipulation Interface for Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21864/) (2025)
- [Motion Tracks: A Unified Representation for Human-Robot Transfer in Few-Shot Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.06994/) (2025)
- [Diffusion Reward: Learning Rewards via Conditional Video Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14134/) (2023)
- [CoMo: Learning Continuous Latent Motion from Internet Videos for Scalable Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17006/) (2025)
- [CEED-VLA: Consistency Vision-Language-Action Model with Early-Exit Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13725/) (2025)
- [DexMachina: Functional Retargeting for Bimanual Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.24853/) (2025)
- [3DFlowAction: Learning Cross-Embodiment Manipulation from 3D Flow World Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.06199/) (2025)
- [UniSkill: Imitating Human Videos via Cross-Embodiment Skill Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08787/) (2025)
- [Digital Twin Catalog: A Large-Scale Photorealistic 3D Object Digital Twin Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.08541/) (2025)
- [EgoBridge: Domain Adaptation for Generalizable Imitation from Egocentric Human Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19626/) (2025)
- [X-Sim: Cross-Embodiment Learning via Real-to-Sim-to-Real](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.07096/) (2025)
- [Robots Pre-train Robots: Manipulation-Centric Robotic Representation from Large-Scale Robot Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22325/) (2024)
- [Latent Action Diffusion for Cross-Embodiment Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14608/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [UniSteer: Unified Noise Steering for Efficient Human-Guided VLA Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.10821/) (2026)
- [FACT: Failure-Aware Causal Training for World-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10232/) (2026)
- [UniDexTok: A Unified Dexterous Hand Tokenizer from Real Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.10683/) (2026)
- [ZETA: A Controlled Study of Zero-Shot Cross-Embodiment VLA Transfer for Tabletop Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.02546/) (2026)
- [GALA: Geometry-Aware Latent Action Modeling for Vision-Language-Action Model Pretraining across Embodiments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21948/) (2026)
- [DexCast: Learning Real-World Dexterous Control from Human Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14691/) (2026)
- [UniLAP: A Unified Latent Action Policy for Cross-Embodiment Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16969/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Dexterous manipulation is essential for real-world robot autonomy, mirroring the central role of human hand coordination in daily activity. Humans rely on rich multimodal perception--vision, sound, and language-guided intent--to perform dexterous actions, motivating vision-based, language-conditioned manipulation systems for robots. However, training reliable vision-language-action (VLA) models for dexterous manipulation requires large-scale demonstrations across many robotic hands. In addition, as new dexterous embodiments appear rapidly, collecting data for each becomes costly and impractical, creating a need for scalable cross-embodiment learning. We introduce XL-VLA, a vision-language-action framework integrated with a unified latent action space shared across diverse dexterous hands. This embodiment-invariant latent space is directly pluggable into standard VLA architectures, enabling seamless cross-embodiment training and efficient reuse of both existing and newly collected data. Experimental results demonstrate that XL-VLA consistently outperforms baseline VLA models operating in raw joint spaces, establishing it as an effective solution for scalable cross-embodiment dexterous manipulation.