Cross-Embodiment Transfer via Behavior-Aligned Representations
arXiv:2607.27549
The paper investigates how behavior-aligned representations such as object bounding boxes, language-described motions, and end-effector traces can improve cross-embodiment transfer in vision-language-action models for robot manipulation, showing notable gains in simulation-to-real transfer.
Abstract
Recent progress in large-scale imitation learning for robot manipulation has been driven by leveraging datasets across a wide range of robot embodiments. However, achieving significant cross-embodiment transfer is often still challenging. In this work, we study the role of using behavior-aligned representations (e.g., object bounding boxes, language motions, end-effector traces of robot motion) in vision-language-action (VLA) models to promote cross-embodiment transfer. We hypothesize that by possessing invariances across embodiments while being predictive of robot actions, these representations can help unify large-scale cross-embodiment data to enhance transfer. To assess our hypothesis, we develop a simulation-based benchmark designed to assess transfer with diverse cross-embodiment data to new embodiments. Using this benchmark, we compare different representations and ways of incorporating them. We identify that end-effector traces can be particularly beneficial for transfer, representations are generally more useful with larger prior datasets, and can be used to benefit from action-free data. We also demonstrate that they can enhance sim-to-real cross-embodiment transfer, improving task completion progress of real robot policies pre-trained on simulation data by 28%. We provide videos of our evaluations at our website: https://ajaysridhar.com/barx/.
Project page: https://ajaysridhar.com/barx/