RL for Robotics

RL: Reinforcement Learning

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Overview

Reinforcement learning for robotics studies how robots can learn actions that achieve goals while coping with contact, uncertainty, and changing environments. Common methods include PPO, SAC, and TD3, often trained in parallel simulation with domain randomization; imitation learning, motion priors, and pretrained vision-language-action models increasingly provide useful starting points. Work spans humanoid locomotion, aerial and mobile navigation, and manipulation that uses tactile feedback, with safety filters and learned world models helping address risky or partially observed tasks. A central challenge is making learning more sample-efficient while ensuring that simulated skills and learned rewards remain reliable on real robots and unfamiliar situations.

Latest papers

CardsList

253 papers45 papers in the last four weeks, up 45% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

  1. HALO:Closing Sim-to-Real Gap for Heavy-loaded Humanoid Agile Motion Skills via Differentiable Simulation

    Mar 16, 2026Xingyi Wang, Chenyun Zhang, Weiji Xie +4Sim-to-Real TransferRL for Robotics

    Zhejiang University · Institute of Artificial Intelligence (TeleAI), China Telecom · Shanghai Jiao Tong University +1

  2. CycleRL: Sim-to-Real Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robust Autonomous Bicycle Control

    Mar 16, 2026Gelu Liu, Teng Wang, Zhijie Wu +3Robotic ControlRL for Robotics

    School of Electronics and Communication Engineering and Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Navigation and Communication Integration, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen 518107, China

  3. Learning Energy-Efficient Air--Ground Actuation for Hybrid Robots on Stair-Like Terrain

    Mar 13, 2026Jiaxing Li, Ishaan Bhimwal, Wen Tian +5Robot LocomotionEnergy-Efficient Robot Locomotion

    Carnegie Mellon University, US · Technische Hochschule Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Germany · Nanyang Technological University, Singapore +1

  4. NFPO: Stabilized Policy Optimization of Normalizing Flow for Robotic Policy Learning

    Mar 12, 2026Diyuan Shi, Yiqi Tang, Zifeng Zhuang +1RL for RoboticsRobotic RL

    Zhejiang University · Westlake University

  5. AdaClearGrasp: Learning Adaptive Clearing for Zero-Shot Robust Dexterous Grasping in Densely Cluttered Environments

    Mar 11, 2026Zixuan Chen, Wenquan Zhang, Jing Fang +7Robotic GraspingRobotics

    Nanjing University · Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications · National University of Singapore

  6. From Prior to Pro: Efficient Skill Mastery via Distribution Contractive RL Finetuning

    Mar 10, 2026Zhanyi Sun, Shuran SongRL for RoboticsRobot Policy Learning

    1Stanford University.

  7. Emerging Extrinsic Dexterity in Cluttered Scenes via Dynamics-aware Policy Learning

    Mar 10, 2026Yixin Zheng, Jiangran Lyu, Yifan Zhang +8Non-Prehensile Robotic ManipulationRobotic Manipulation

    Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences · Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence · Galbot +2

  8. MO-Playground: Massively Parallelized Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning for Robotics

    Mar 10, 2026Neil Janwani, Ellen Novoseller, Vernon J. Lawhern +1GPU-Accelerated RLMulti-Objective Reinforcement Learning

    Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA USA · DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, MD, USA

  9. MetaWorld-X: Hierarchical World Modeling via VLM-Orchestrated Experts for Humanoid Loco-Manipulation

    Mar 9, 2026Yutong Shen, Hangxu Liu, Penghui Liu +6Humanoid Loco-ManipulationHumanoid Robot Control

    School of Information Science and Technology, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China · School of Information Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China · University of Alberta, Canada +1

  10. Exoskeleton Control through Learning to Reduce Biological Joint Moments in Simulations

    Mar 8, 2026Zihang You, Xianlian ZhouSim-to-Real TransferRL for Robotics

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA

  11. HybridMimic: Hybrid RL-Centroidal Control for Humanoid Motion Mimicking

    Mar 6, 2026Ludwig Chee-Ying Tay, I-Chia Chang, Yan GuHuman-to-Robot Motion ImitationRobotic Control

    Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA. · School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.

  12. Dual-Agent Multiple-Model Reinforcement Learning for Event-Triggered Human-Robot Co-Adaptation in Decoupled Task Spaces

    Mar 6, 2026Yaqi Li, Zhengqi Han, Huifang Liu +1Human-Robot InteractionRL for Robotics

    Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology Sydney, Australia · College of Medical information and Artificial intelligence, Shandong First Medical University (Shandong Academy of Medical Science) 6699 Qingdao Road, Jinan, Shandong, China

  13. Swooper: Learning High-Speed Aerial Grasping With a Simple Gripper

    Mar 6, 2026Ziken Huang, Xinze Niu, Bowen Chai +2Aerial RoboticsAerial Manipulation

    School of Automation and Intelligent Sensing, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

  14. PRISM: Personalized Refinement of Imitation Skills for Manipulation via Human Instructions

    Mar 5, 2026Arnau Boix-Granell, Alberto San-Miguel-Tello, Magí Dalmau-Moreno +1Robot Imitation LearningInteractive Imitation Learning

    Eurecat, Centre Tecnològic Catalunya, Robotics & Automation Unit, Barcelona, Spain

  15. Latent Policy Steering through One-Step Flow Policies

    Mar 5, 2026Hokyun Im, Andrey Kolobov, Jianlong Fu +1RL for RoboticsLatent Action Learning

    Department of Artificial Intelligence, Yonsei University · Microsoft Research

  16. Decoupling Task and Behavior: A Two-Stage Reward Curriculum in Reinforcement Learning for Robotics

    Mar 5, 2026Kilian Freitag, Knut Åkesson, Morteza Haghir ChehreghaniRL for RoboticsReinforcement Learning

    Chalmers University of Technology · Gothenburg University

  17. Tendon Force Modeling for Sim2Real Transfer of Reinforcement Learning Policies for Tendon-Driven Robots

    Mar 4, 2026Valentin Yuryev, Josie HughesSim-to-Real TransferTendon-Driven Actuation

    These authors are with with CREATE Lab, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.

  18. UrbanHuRo: A Two-Layer Human-Robot Collaboration Framework for the Joint Optimization of Heterogeneous Urban Services

    Mar 4, 2026Tonmoy Dey, Lin Jiang, Zheng Dong +1Human-Robot CollaborationRL for Robotics

    Department of Computer Science, Florida State University. · Department of Computer Science, Wayne State University.

  19. ULTRA: Unified Multimodal Control for Autonomous Humanoid Whole-Body Loco-Manipulation

    Mar 3, 2026Xialin He, Sirui Xu, Xinyao Li +4Robotic ControlHumanoid Loco-Manipulation

    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  20. Rhythm: Learning Interactive Whole-Body Control for Dual Humanoids

    Mar 3, 2026Hongjin Chen, Wei Zhang, Pengfei Li +10RL for RoboticsHumanoid Robot Control

    Fudan University · TARS Robotics · Tsinghua University +3

  21. HydroShear: Hydroelastic Shear Simulation for Tactile Sim-to-Real Reinforcement Learning

    Feb 28, 2026An Dang, Jayjun Lee, Mustafa Mukadam +4Sim-to-Real TransferRobotic Tactile Sensing

    Robotics Department, University of Michigan · Amazon Industrial Robotics (AIR)

  22. LessMimic: Long-Horizon Humanoid Interaction with Unified Distance Field Representations

    Feb 25, 2026Yutang Lin, Jieming Cui, Yixuan Li +3Humanoid Robot ControlLong-Horizon Robotic Manipulation

  23. Task-oriented grasping for dexterous robots using postural synergies and reinforcement learning

    Feb 24, 2026Dimitrios Dimou, José Santos-Victor, Plinio MorenoRobotic GraspingRL for Robotics

    Institute for Systems and Robotics Instituto Superior Tecnico Lisboa, Portugal

  24. What Matters for Simulation to Online Reinforcement Learning on Real Robots

    Feb 23, 2026Yarden As, Dhruva Tirumala, René Zurbrügg +4RL for RoboticsRobotic RL

    ETH Zurich · Google DeepMind

  25. Sample-Efficient Learning with Online Expert Correction for Autonomous Catheter Steering in Endovascular Bifurcation Navigation

    Feb 23, 2026Hao Wang, Tianliang Yao, Bo Lu +4Robotic Endovascular InterventionRL for Robotics

    Department of Control Science and Engineering, College of Electronics and Information Engineering, and Shanghai Institute of Intelligent Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China · Department of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China · Robotics and Microsystems Center, School of Mechanical and Electric Engineering, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215131, China +3

  26. Cross-Embodiment Offline Reinforcement Learning for Heterogeneous Robot Datasets

    Feb 20, 2026Haruki Abe, Takayuki Osa, Yusuke Mukuta +1RL for RoboticsCross-Embodiment Robot Learning

    The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan · RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, Tokyo, Japan

  27. Reinforcement-Learning-Based Assistance Reduces Squat Effort with a Modular Hip--Knee Exoskeleton

    Feb 19, 2026Neethan Ratnakumar, Mariya Huzaifa Tohfafarosh, Saanya Jauhri +1Upper-Limb ExoskeletonsAssistive Robotics

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA.

  28. AdaptManip: Learning Adaptive Whole-Body Object Lifting and Delivery with Online Recurrent State Estimation

    Feb 16, 2026Morgan Byrd, Donghoon Baek, Kartik Garg +5RL for RoboticsRobotic Manipulation

    Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30308, USA · Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, GA, 30308, USA

  29. High-Speed Vision-Based Flight in Clutter with Safety-Shielded Reinforcement Learning

    Feb 9, 2026Jiarui Zhang, Chengyong Lei, Chengjiang Dai +4RL for RoboticsUAV Navigation

    Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China · Differential Robotics, Hangzhou 311121, China.

  30. Flow Policy Gradients for Robot Control

    Feb 2, 2026Brent Yi, Hongsuk Choi, Himanshu Gaurav Singh +9Robotic ControlRL for Robotics

    Amazon FAR · UC Berkeley · Stanford +2