mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Cooperative Multi-Agent Vision-Language-Action Models via Reinforced Fine Tuning

arXiv 2609.36588 ↗First posted 29 Sep 2026cs.RO cs.AI cs.MAcited by 0

On the map: Vision-language-action models → Reinforcement learning and post-training

Abstract (arXiv)

We study reinforcement learning (RL) methods for cooperative multi-agent Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models. This problem is challenging because VLAs are pretrained on large-scale single-agent data and therefore lack the fine-grained coordination skills required for inter-robot collaboration. Supervised fine-tuning (SFT) on multi-robot demonstrations partially bridges this gap, but its performance is bounded by the demonstration data and cannot improve from its own experience. We present a three-stage reinforced fine-tuning (RFT) pipeline for multi-agent VLAs. First, initialization-aware data collection sweeps over initial configurations and invokes human demonstrations only when the pretrained VLA repeatedly fails, yielding robustness to initialization shift with reduced human cost. Second, offline credit-filtered tuning assigns credit to individual agents and fine-tunes on per-agent trajectories with positive advantage rather than on entire joint rollouts. Third, we find existing online RL for VLAs are less effective for hard multi-agent tasks, which we attribute to noisy co-exploration and unstable updates. We instead use online latent-space fine tuning, which freeze the VLA and perform RL in its latent noise space. We evaluate our multi-agent VLA with both π0 and π0.5 backbones across 11 tasks in RoboTwin, RoboFactory and real-world manipulation with two Franka robots. Our multi-agent VLA improves the average success rate by +23.1%, +16.4%, and +44% on RoboTwin, RoboFactory, and real-world tasks, respectively. Code available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/mavlarft-2BC0/.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning and post-training, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 45 of its 58 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Sep 2026.

Builds on

45 of 58 references.

Closest ancestors · 8

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025π*0.6: a VLA That Learns From Experience18 Nov
  2. 2025TGRPO :Fine-tuning Vision-Language-Action Model via Trajectory-wise Group Relative Policy Optimization10 Jun
  3. 2025RFTF: Reinforcement Fine-tuning for Embodied Agents with Temporal Feedback26 May
  4. 2025VLA-RL: Towards Masterful and General Robotic Manipulation with Scalable Reinforcement Learning24 May
  5. 2025Interactive Post-Training for Vision-Language-Action Models22 May
  6. 2025ConRFT: A Reinforced Fine-tuning Method for VLA Models via Consistency Policy8 Feb
  7. 2025Improving Vision-Language-Action Model with Online Reinforcement Learning28 Jan
  8. 2024Steering Your Generalists: Improving Robotic Foundation Models via Value Guidance17 Oct

Other references · 37

  1. 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 2,993
  2. 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusioncited by 2,730
  3. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,297
  4. 2022RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scalecited by 2,007
  5. 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,653
  6. 2021The Surprising Effectiveness of PPO in Cooperative, Multi-Agent Gamescited by 903
  7. 2018QMIX: Monotonic Value Function Factorisation for Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 697
  8. 2024RDT-1B: a Diffusion Foundation Model for Bimanual Manipulationcited by 670
  9. 2025FAST: Efficient Action Tokenization for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 643
  10. 2025SmolVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model for Affordable and Efficient Roboticscited by 507
  11. 2025RoboTwin 2.0: A Scalable Data Generator and Benchmark with Strong Domain Randomization for Robust Bimanual Robotic Manipulationcited by 477
  12. 2020Monotonic Value Function Factorisation for Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 475
25 more
  1. 2022Rectified Flow: A Marginal Preserving Approach to Optimal Transportcited by 277
  2. 2023Building Cooperative Embodied Agents Modularly with Large Language Modelscited by 231
  3. 2013The Complexity of Decentralized Control of Markov Decision Processescited by 225
  4. 2025DreamVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model Dreamed with Comprehensive World Knowledgecited by 203
  5. 2025DexVLA: Vision-Language Model with Plug-In Diffusion Expert for General Robot Controlcited by 191
  6. 2021Trust Region Policy Optimisation in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 180
  7. 2025HybridVLA: Collaborative Diffusion and Autoregression in a Unified Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 176
  8. 2024Precise and Dexterous Robotic Manipulation via Human-in-the-Loop Reinforcement Learningcited by 153
  9. 2023SMART-LLM: Smart Multi-Agent Robot Task Planning using Large Language Modelscited by 151
  10. 2025Steering Your Diffusion Policy with Latent Space Reinforcement Learningcited by 149
  11. 2024SERL: A Software Suite for Sample-Efficient Robotic Reinforcement Learningcited by 113
  12. 2025OneTwoVLA: A Unified Vision-Language-Action Model with Adaptive Reasoningcited by 105
  13. 2025ReinFlow: Fine-tuning Flow Matching Policy with Online Reinforcement Learningcited by 83
  14. 2025Dita: Scaling Diffusion Transformer for Generalist Vision-Language-Action Policycited by 73
  15. 2023Heterogeneous-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 67
  16. 2025Training-Time Action Conditioning for Efficient Real-Time Chunkingcited by 61
  17. 2024Diffusion-VLA: Generalizable and Interpretable Robot Foundation Model via Self-Generated Reasoningcited by 57
  18. 2024Towards Efficient LLM Grounding for Embodied Multi-Agent Collaborationcited by 45
  19. 2024VLATest: Testing and Evaluating Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 43
  20. 2024COHERENT: Collaboration of Heterogeneous Multi-Robot System with Large Language Modelscited by 43
  21. 2025RoboFactory: Exploring Embodied Agent Collaboration with Compositional Constraintscited by 31
  22. 2024EMOS: Embodiment-aware Heterogeneous Multi-robot Operating System with LLM Agentscited by 24
  23. 2026Dexora: Open-source VLA for High-DoF Bimanual Dexteritycited by 9
  24. 2026CHORUS: Decentralized Multi-Embodiment Collaboration with One VLA Policycited by 4
  25. 2026CoEnv: Driving Embodied Multi-Agent Collaboration via Compositional Environmentcited by 1

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  1. 2025Dual-Actor Fine-Tuning of VLA Models: A Talk-and-Tweak Human-in-the-Loop Approach
  2. 2026An Empirical Study and Open Testbed for Federated Fine-Tuning of Vision-Language-Action Models
  3. 2025Fine-Tuning Vision-Language-Action Models: Optimizing Speed and Success
  4. 2025VLA-RFT: Vision-Language-Action Reinforcement Fine-tuning with Verified Rewards in World Simulators
  5. 2025π_textttRL: Online RL Fine-tuning for Flow-based Vision-Language-Action Models
  6. 2026MA-VLCM: A Vision Language Critic Model for Value Estimation of Policies in Multi-Agent Team Settings
  7. 2024Coevolving with the Other You: Fine-Tuning LLM with Sequential Cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
  8. 2025CO-RFT: Efficient Fine-Tuning of Vision-Language-Action Models through Chunked Offline Reinforcement Learning