# Chunk-wise Model-based Policy Optimization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14564 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14564/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in RL for robot locomotion and manipulation, one of 15 directions in Deep reinforcement learning methods.
- Builds on 38 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Oct 2026.

## Placed in

- Deep reinforcement learning methods / [RL for robot locomotion and manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/deeprl/rl-for-robot-locomotion-and-manipulation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03300/) (2024)
- [Soft Actor-Critic: Off-Policy Maximum Entropy Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Stochastic Actor](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.01290/) (2018)
- [Continuous control with deep reinforcement learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.02971/) (2015)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Addressing Function Approximation Error in Actor-Critic Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.09477/) (2018)
- [π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24164/) (2024)
- [Dream to Control: Learning Behaviors by Latent Imagination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01603/) (2019)
- [Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13705/) (2023)
- [Mastering Diverse Domains through World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04104/) (2023)
- [Mastering Atari with Discrete World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02193/) (2020)
- [Deep Reinforcement Learning in a Handful of Trials using Probabilistic Dynamics Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.12114/) (2018)
- [When to Trust Your Model: Model-Based Policy Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08253/) (2019)
- [MOReL : Model-Based Offline Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.05951/) (2020)
- [TD-MPC2: Scalable, Robust World Models for Continuous Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16828/) (2023)
- [Temporal Difference Learning for Model Predictive Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.04955/) (2022)
- [COMBO: Conservative Offline Model-Based Policy Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08363/) (2021)
- [Neural Network Dynamics for Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning with Model-Free Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.02596/) (2017)
- [Mastering Atari Games with Limited Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00210/) (2021)
- [Model-Ensemble Trust-Region Policy Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.10592/) (2018)
- [Real-World Humanoid Locomotion with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03381/) (2023)
- [Learning Continuous Control Policies by Stochastic Value Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.09142/) (2015)
- [Model-Based Value Estimation for Efficient Model-Free Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.00101/) (2018)
- [ANYmal Parkour: Learning Agile Navigation for Quadrupedal Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14874/) (2023)
- [DeXtreme: Transfer of Agile In-hand Manipulation from Simulation to Reality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13702/) (2022)
- [Algorithmic Framework for Model-based Deep Reinforcement Learning with Theoretical Guarantees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.03858/) (2018)
- [HumanoidBench: Simulated Humanoid Benchmark for Whole-Body Locomotion and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10506/) (2024)
- [Reinforcement Learning with Action Chunking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.07969/) (2025)
- [Model-Augmented Actor-Critic: Backpropagating through Paths](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.08068/) (2020)
- [On the model-based stochastic value gradient for continuous reinforcement learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.12775/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Model-based reinforcement learning has shown superior sample efficiency by leveraging the learned latent dynamics either in the form of derivative-free planning/imagined rollout training or dynamics gradient-based policy updates. While these approaches achieve comparatively fast learning, they all suffer, to varying degrees, from issues of recurrent compounding errors, high inference-time latency, and instability in backward propagation through time (BPTT). In this work, we propose a model-based RL approach that uses the chunk world model as a differentiable training-time evaluator to optimize the chunk actor without recurrent model invocation. Through the collaborative chunk-wise prediction of the world model and policy, we can generate H-step hypothetical rollouts in a single forward pass and directly optimize value expansion, avoiding the costly and unstable BPTT. We evaluate our method on 19 challenging high-dimensional humanoid tasks from HumanoidBench and deploy our method to the real-world for quadruped bipedal walking. Project Website: https://song-wx.github.io/cmpo.github.io/