VA-FastNavi-MARL: Real-Time Robot Control with Multimedia-Driven Meta-Reinforcement Learning

arXiv cs.RO / 4/7/2026

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Key Points

  • VA-FastNavi-MARL is presented as a robot navigation/control framework that can interpret heterogeneous, dynamic multimedia commands (audio and visual) with real-time responsiveness for human-robot interaction.
  • The method maps asynchronous audio-visual inputs into a shared latent representation and reformulates instructions as a distribution of navigable goals, enabling meta-reinforcement learning to adapt to previously unseen directives.
  • It emphasizes low-latency control by avoiding approaches that are bottlenecked by heavy sensory processing, aiming for modality-agnostic streaming with negligible inference overhead.
  • Experiments on a multi-arm workspace report significantly better sample efficiency than baselines and robust real-time execution under noisy multimedia input streams.

Abstract

Interpreting dynamic, heterogeneous multimedia commands with real-time responsiveness is critical for Human-Robot Interaction. We present VA-FastNavi-MARL, a framework that aligns asynchronous audio-visual inputs into a unified latent representation. By treating diverse instructions as a distribution of navigable goals via Meta-Reinforcement Learning, our method enables rapid adaptation to unseen directives with negligible inference overhead. Unlike approaches bottlenecked by heavy sensory processing, our modality-agnostic stream ensures seamless, low-latency control. Validation on a multi-arm workspace confirms that VA-FastNavi-MARL significantly outperforms baselines in sample efficiency and maintains robust, real-time execution even under noisy multimedia streams.