Spike-driven Vision-Language-Action Model
On the map: Vision-language-action models → Efficient VLA inference and adaptation also fits: Generalist VLA models and benchmarks
Abstract (arXiv)
Vision-language-action (VLA) models bridge multimodal understanding and robotic control, advancing the dominant paradigm for embodied intelligence. However, most existing models rely on large Transformers, whose latency and energy costs hinder deployment on resource-constrained platforms. Through sparse event-driven computation, spiking neural networks offer a promising paradigm for high-performance and energy-efficient computing. Here, we propose the first Spike-driven VLA framework enabling end-to-end direct training for robotic manipulation, which mainly comprises three core components. First, we develop spiking visual and instruction encoders for multimodal perception, encoding visual observations and language instructions into sparse, reliable spike representations for subsequent cross-modal fusion. Then, we introduce Multi-Winner Spike Fusion for instruction-guided scene understanding, using bidirectional top-k winner-take-all spike routing to suppress background interference and yield fused memory. Finally, we propose a Spike Action Chunking Transformer that incorporates spiking cross-attention over the fused memory and the current robot state, enabling efficient end-to-end generation of continuous action chunks for robotic control. Extensive experiments on LIBERO and Meta-World demonstrate that Spike-driven VLA achieves competitive performance with fewer parameters and lower estimated inference energy than conventional VLA models. This work establishes a foundational framework for neuromorphic VLA modeling, paving the way for future advances in resource-efficient embodied intelligence.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Efficient VLA inference and adaptation, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 36 of its 55 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Sep 2026.
Builds on
36 of 55 references.
Closest ancestors · 3
Same direction, newest first
- 2026TurboVLA: Real-Time Vision-Language-Action Model at 32 Hz on an RTX 4090 with <1 GB VRAM29 Jul
- 2025CogVLA: Cognition-Aligned Vision-Language-Action Model via Instruction-Driven Routing & Sparsification28 Aug
- 2025EdgeVLA: Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models18 Jul
Other references · 33
- 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 60,361
- 2015Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognitioncited by 52,096
- 2018BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understandingcited by 40,399
- 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 3,080
- 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,887
- 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,407
- 2023PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Modelcited by 2,071
- 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,761
- 2024Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policycited by 1,484
- 2025DINOv3cited by 1,414
- 2023LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learningcited by 1,410
- 2019Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,204
21 more
- 2025SmolVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model for Affordable and Efficient Roboticscited by 530
- 2025UniVLA: Learning to Act Anywhere with Task-centric Latent Actionscited by 410
- 2017Spatio-Temporal Backpropagation for Training High-performance Spiking Neural Networkscited by 406
- 2024TinyVLA: Towards Fast, Data-Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 339
- 2022Spikformer: When Spiking Neural Network Meets Transformercited by 271
- 2025DreamVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model Dreamed with Comprehensive World Knowledgecited by 213
- 2023Spike-driven Transformercited by 146
- 2025VLA-Adapter: An Effective Paradigm for Tiny-Scale Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 145
- 2025NORA: A Small Open-Sourced Generalist Vision Language Action Model for Embodied Taskscited by 127
- 2021A Free Lunch From ANN: Towards Efficient, Accurate Spiking Neural Networks Calibrationcited by 117
- 2024Spike-driven Transformer V2: Meta Spiking Neural Network Architecture Inspiring the Design of Next-generation Neuromorphic Chipscited by 103
- 2023SpikeGPT: Generative Pre-trained Language Model with Spiking Neural Networkscited by 88
- 2024Scaling Spike-driven Transformer with Efficient Spike Firing Approximation Trainingcited by 59
- 2020ShiftAddNet: A Hardware-Inspired Deep Networkcited by 52
- 2024QKFormer: Hierarchical Spiking Transformer using Q-K Attentioncited by 49
- 2025Spiking Vision Transformer with Saccadic Attentioncited by 21
- 2024SpikeZIP-TF: Conversion is All You Need for Transformer-based SNNcited by 18
- 2025SDTrack: A Baseline for Event-based Tracking via Spiking Neural Networkscited by 12
- 2024Ternary Spike-based Neuromorphic Signal Processing Systemcited by 8
- 2023A Hybrid Neural Coding Approach for Pattern Recognition with Spiking Neural Networkscited by 6
- 2026SpikeVLA: Vision-Language-Action Models with Spiking Neural Networkscited by 1
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- 2026VL2Spike: Spike-driven Distillation from VLMs for Low-Power Visual Perception in Embodied AI
- 2025Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Embodied Manipulation: A Systematic Survey
- 2025MoLe-VLA: Dynamic Layer-skipping Vision Language Action Model via Mixture-of-Layers for Efficient Robot Manipulation
- 2026DS-VLA: A Dendritic-inspired Vision-Language-Action Model for Robust Action Control
- 2025VITA-VLA: Efficiently Teaching Vision-Language Models to Act via Action Expert Distillation
- 2025PD-VLA: Accelerating Vision-Language-Action Model Integrated with Action Chunking via Parallel Decoding
- 2026Look Before Acting: Enhancing Vision Foundation Representations for Vision-Language-Action Models
- 2026NS-VLA: Towards Neuro-Symbolic Vision-Language-Action Models