mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Behavioral Mode Discovery for Fine-tuning Multimodal Generative Policies

arXiv 2605.11387 ↗First posted 12 May 2026cs.LG cs.ROcited by 2

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Abstract (arXiv)

We address the problem of fine-tuning pre-trained generative policies with reinforcement learning (RL) while preserving the multimodality of their action distributions. Existing methods for RL fine-tuning of generative policies (e.g., diffusion policies) improve task performance but often collapse diverse behaviors into a single reward-maximizing mode. To mitigate this issue, we propose an unsupervised mode discovery framework that uncovers latent behavioral modes within generative policies. The discovered modes enable the use of mutual information as an intrinsic reward, regularizing RL fine-tuning to enhance task success while maintaining behavioral diversity. Experiments on robotic manipulation tasks demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms conventional fine-tuning approaches, achieving higher success rates and preserving richer multimodal action distributions.

Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 40 of its 44 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 12 May 2026.

Builds on

40 of 44 references.

References · 40

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  2. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 14,441
  3. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
  4. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
  5. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,777
  6. 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusioncited by 2,730
  7. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,297
  8. 2018Diversity is All You Need: Learning Skills without a Reward Functioncited by 734
  9. 2022Diffusion Policies as an Expressive Policy Class for Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 543
  10. 2019Dynamics-Aware Unsupervised Discovery of Skillscited by 308
  11. 2016Variational Intrinsic Controlcited by 262
  12. 2024Diffusion Policy Policy Optimizationcited by 255
28 more
  1. 2024ManiSkill3: GPU Parallelized Robotics Simulation and Rendering for Generalizable Embodied AIcited by 216
  2. 2025MolmoAct: Action Reasoning Models that can Reason in Spacecited by 189
  3. 2021Behavior From the Void: Unsupervised Active Pre-Trainingcited by 173
  4. 2025Flow Q-Learningcited by 162
  5. 2023Efficient Diffusion Policies for Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 151
  6. 2025Steering Your Diffusion Policy with Latent Space Reinforcement Learningcited by 149
  7. 2019Fast Task Inference with Variational Intrinsic Successor Featurescited by 131
  8. 2023Learning a Diffusion Model Policy from Rewards via Q-Score Matchingcited by 126
  9. 2018Variational Option Discovery Algorithmscited by 121
  10. 2021APS: Active Pretraining with Successor Featurescited by 109
  11. 2023Policy Representation via Diffusion Probability Model for Reinforcement Learningcited by 105
  12. 2017Eigenoption Discovery through the Deep Successor Representationcited by 85
  13. 2024From Imitation to Refinement -- Residual RL for Precise Assemblycited by 80
  14. 2017Multi-Modal Imitation Learning from Unstructured Demonstrations using Generative Adversarial Netscited by 64
  15. 2024Policy Decorator: Model-Agnostic Online Refinement for Large Policy Modelcited by 60
  16. 2021Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning By Discovering Intrinsic Optionscited by 57
  17. 2024Towards Diverse Behaviors: A Benchmark for Imitation Learning with Human Demonstrationscited by 51
  18. 2023Controllability-Aware Unsupervised Skill Discoverycited by 49
  19. 2024Learning Multimodal Behaviors from Scratch with Diffusion Policy Gradientcited by 49
  20. 2024Diffusion Policies creating a Trust Region for Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 41
  21. 2021Unsupervised Skill Discovery with Bottleneck Option Learningcited by 28
  22. 2023Reparameterized Policy Learning for Multimodal Trajectory Optimizationcited by 20
  23. 2021Mutual Information State Intrinsic Controlcited by 18
  24. 2024Language Guided Skill Discoverycited by 16
  25. 2025How to Train Your Robots? The Impact of Demonstration Modality on Imitation Learningcited by 11
  26. 2022Unsupervised Reinforcement Learning for Transferable Manipulation Skill Discoverycited by 5
  27. 2024SLIM: Skill Learning with Multiple Criticscited by 3
  28. 2024Rethinking Inverse Reinforcement Learning: from Data Alignment to Task Alignmentcited by 3

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Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

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  1. 2024Revisiting Generative Policies: A Simpler Reinforcement Learning Algorithmic Perspective
  2. 2024The Duality of Generative AI and Reinforcement Learning in Robotics: A Review
  3. 2026MARS Policy: Multimodality Only When It Matters
  4. 2026Many Ways to Succeed: Diversity-Driven RL Fine-Tuning for VLA Generalization
  5. 2026TMRL: Diffusion Timestep-Modulated Pretraining Enables Exploration for Efficient Policy Finetuning
  6. 2026Understanding Multimodal Failure in Action-Chunking Behavioral Cloning
  7. 2025Discover, Learn, and Reinforce: Scaling Vision-Language-Action Pretraining with Diverse RL-Generated Trajectories
  8. 2025Much Ado About Noising: Dispelling the Myths of Generative Robotic Control