EVA: Aligning Video World Models with Executable Robot Actions via Inverse Dynamics Rewards
Organizations: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen · DexForce Technology Co., Ltd.
Abstract
Video generative models offer a promising basis for robotic planning by predicting future visual rollouts from observations and task instructions. However, their training objectives typically lack explicit constraints on robot executability. Generated rollouts can exhibit embodiment-related artifacts, including arm deformation and temporal discontinuities, while the actions decoded from these rollouts may be unstable or violate robot motion limits. We term this mismatch between generated robot behavior and embodiment-specific execution requirements the executability gap. We introduce Executable Video Alignment (EVA), a post-training framework that uses action-space feedback to improve both the visual integrity of generated robot motion and the feasibility of decoded actions. EVA trains an inverse dynamics model (IDM) on robot demonstrations and freezes it to decode actions from generated videos. We compute a reward from these actions that penalizes non-smooth motion and violations of velocity and acceleration limits, and use it to guide reinforcement-learning updates to the video generator. By feeding decoded-action constraints back into video generation, EVA links visual and action-level improvements through a shared alignment signal. Experiments on RoboTwin, LIBERO, and a real bimanual robot show that EVA reduces embodiment-related visual artifacts and improves task success when executing IDM-decoded actions. Further experiments show that video models fine-tuned with EVA generate more effective video--action pairs for training downstream VLAs.
Figures & tables
| Method | Kinematic | Interaction | Instruction | Perfect |
| Vidar (Wan2.2) | 67.6 | 66.7 | 87.6 | 62.9 |
| Base | 70.5 | 83.3 | 90.5 | 68.1 |
| EVA | 91.4 | 86.2 | 89.5 | 83.8 |
| Method | RoboTwin 2.0 | LIBERO | ||||||
| Place Mouse | Place Obj. Stand | Turn Switch | Mean (%) 21 tasks | Spatial | Goal | Object | ||
| Base | 10/50 | 28/50 | 23/50 | 45.81 | 46.5 | 49.5 | 63.5 | |
| EVA | 15/50 | 33/50 | 30/50 | 52.29 | 53.5 | 57.0 | 70.0 | |
| +5 | +5 | +7 | +6.48 | +7.0 | +7.5 | +6.5 | ||
| Data source | Click Bell | Place A2B Right | Place Container Plate | Mean |
| Base-generated data | 92 | 18 | 53 | 54.3 |
| EVA-generated data | 98 | 26 | 67 | 63.7 |
| Method | Success (%) | |
| Auxiliary training (21 tasks) | ||
| Base | 1 | 45.81 |
| IDM-aux SFT | 1 | 50.29 |
| EVA | 1 | 52.29 |
| Inference-time controls (3 tasks) | ||
| Base | 1 | 53.0 |
Appendix figures & tables12 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Inverse Dynamics Model | Test Accuracy | Test Success Rate |
| Spatial softmax | 0.9864 | 89.52% |
| Global average pooling | 0.7738 | 84.29% |
| Video planner | ResNet IDM-A | ViT IDM-B |
| Base | 45.8 | 43.5 |
| EVA | 52.3 | 49.7 |
| +6.5 | +6.2 |
| Task | ACT | DP | RDT | Base | EVA | |
| Click Alarmclock | 16/50 | 31/50 | 31/50 | 32/50 | 48/50 | 50/50 |
| Click Bell | 29/50 | 27/50 | 40/50 | 22/50 | 42/50 | 48/50 |
| Handover Block | 21/50 | 5/50 | 23/50 | 23/50 | 0/50 | 0/50 |
| Handover Mic | 43/50 | 27/50 | 45/50 | 49/50 | 1/50 | 8/50 |
| Move Pillbottle Pad | 0/50 | 1/50 | 4/50 | 11/50 | 8/50 | 16/50 |
| Move Stapler Pad | 0/50 | 1/50 | 1/50 | 0/50 | 0/50 | 1/50 |
| Task Name | Arm Type | Task Description |
| StackBowl | Dual-Arm | The robot uses both arms to grasp two bowls from the two sides and stack them onto the target bowl placed at the center of the table. |
| HangCable | Single-Arm | The robot uses a single arm to grasp a black cable and hang it onto the designated rack. |
| Place2Basket | Single-Arm | The robot uses a single arm to pick up an object from the tabletop and place it into a nearby basket. |
| Place2Tray | Single-Arm | The robot uses a single arm to grasp an object from the table and place it onto the tray. |
| FoldTowel | Dual-Arm | The robot uses both arms to grasp the two bottom corners of a towel and fold it upward. |
| PlaceBlock (OOD) | Single-Arm | The robot uses a single arm to pick up a block and place it into the bowl with the specified color and position. |
World Models for Robotics
World models for robotics predict how scenes and robot states change under actions to support planning, control, and learning.
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