# ACRO: Actor-Critic Rollout Orchestration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.19677 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19677/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reinforcement learning and post-training, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models.
- Builds on 13 of its 19 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Oct 2026.

## Placed in

- Vision-language-action models / [Reinforcement learning and post-training](https://mlsanity.com/vla/reinforcement-learning-and-post-training/)
- 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, 13 of 13)

- [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)
- [π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16054/) (2025)
- [Evaluating Real-World Robot Manipulation Policies in Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.05941/) (2024)
- [Steering Your Generalists: Improving Robotic Foundation Models via Value Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13816/) (2024)
- [SAFE: Multitask Failure Detection for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09937/) (2025)
- [Continuous and Discrete-Time Survival Prediction with Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.06724/) (2019)
- [Failure Prediction at Runtime for Generative Robot Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.09459/) (2025)
- [Scaling Verification Can Be More Effective than Scaling Policy Learning for Vision-Language-Action Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12281/) (2026)
- [CycleVLA: Proactive Self-Correcting Vision-Language-Action Models via Subtask Backtracking and Minimum Bayes Risk Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.02295/) (2026)
- [Addressing the Orchestration Gap in Generalist Robots via Physical Agency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21725/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Executing a vision-language-action (VLA) policy involves deciding when to continue an attempt and when to intervene to improve its chances of success. We introduce ACRO, an Actor--Critic rollout orchestration layer that makes these decisions for a fixed VLA. ACRO seeks interventions that offer a more promising continuation, are physically feasible, and leave sufficient time to complete the task. A Critic learned from policy rollouts estimates success prospects to decide when to intervene and select a re-entry target along the executed trajectory. Trajectory Retraction shortcuts the visited path to return the robot to that target, where the same VLA resumes execution from a fresh observation. We evaluate ACRO with GR00T N1.7 and π0.5 across SimplerEnv, RoboCasa, and real-robot manipulation. Under the same physical execution budget, including all return motion, ACRO improves success by 10.4, 7.3, and 21.7 percentage points, respectively. It also completes additional tasks as the execution budget grows. These results show that controlling when and where a policy resumes can turn its existing capabilities into more successful task executions. Project page: https://junhoo.me/acro