# Long-Term Memory for VLA-based Agents in Open-World Task Execution

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.15671 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.15671/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Failure recovery and robustness, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models.
- Builds on 28 of its 44 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Apr 2026.

## Placed in

- Vision-language-action models / [Failure recovery and robustness](https://mlsanity.com/vla/failure-recovery-and-robustness/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

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- [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)
- [Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.01691/) (2022)
- [Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16291/) (2023)
- [π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16054/) (2025)
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- [Language Agent Tree Search Unifies Reasoning Acting and Planning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04406/) (2023)
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- [Ghost in the Minecraft: Generally Capable Agents for Open-World Environments via Large Language Models with Text-based Knowledge and Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17144/) (2023)
- [AnyGrasp: Robust and Efficient Grasp Perception in Spatial and Temporal Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08333/) (2022)
- [Take a Step Back: Evoking Reasoning via Abstraction in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06117/) (2023)
- [Cradle: Empowering Foundation Agents Towards General Computer Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03186/) (2024)
- [A Review of Large Language Models and Autonomous Agents in Chemistry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01603/) (2024)
- [Training-Time Action Conditioning for Efficient Real-Time Chunking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.05964/) (2025)
- [ORGANA: A Robotic Assistant for Automated Chemistry Experimentation and Characterization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06949/) (2024)
- [Creative Robot Tool Use with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.13065/) (2023)
- [UFO2: The Desktop AgentOS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.14603/) (2025)
- [RoboMatrix: A Skill-centric Hierarchical Framework for Scalable Robot Task Planning and Execution in Open-World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00171/) (2024)
- [Being-0: A Humanoid Robotic Agent with Vision-Language Models and Modular Skills](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12533/) (2025)
- [Wonderful Team: Zero-Shot Physical Task Planning with Visual LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19094/) (2024)
- [RoboChemist: Long-Horizon and Safety-Compliant Robotic Chemical Experimentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.08820/) (2025)
- [Task Bench: A Parameterized Benchmark for Evaluating Parallel Runtime Performance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.05790/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have demonstrated significant potential for embodied decision-making; however, their application in complex chemical laboratory automation remains restricted by limited long-horizon reasoning and the absence of persistent experience accumulation. Existing frameworks typically treat planning and execution as decoupled processes, often failing to consolidate successful strategies, which results in inefficient trial-and-error in multi-stage protocols. In this paper, we propose ChemBot, a dual-layer, closed-loop framework that integrates an autonomous AI agent with a progress-aware VLA model (Skill-VLA) for hierarchical task decomposition and execution. ChemBot utilizes a dual-layer memory architecture to consolidate successful trajectories into retrievable assets, while a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server facilitates efficient sub-agent and tool orchestration. To address the inherent limitations of VLA models, we further implement a future-state-based asynchronous inference mechanism to mitigate trajectory discontinuities. Extensive experiments on collaborative robots demonstrate that ChemBot achieves superior operational safety, precision, and task success rates compared to existing VLA baselines in complex, long-horizon chemical experimentation.