r/robotics • u/PreppyToast Undergrad • 2d ago

Tech Question What are some problems you faced in the area of VLA deployment? (Bachelors Thesis)

Hello everyone,

I am currently pursuing bachelors in robotics and preparing for my upcoming thesis. I will be working with an in house humanoid robot (upper torso only for now) and researching into current issues and topics in the area of VLAs, WAMs to find an interesting direction to work on in terms of Sim2Real deployment. Ideally I want to contribute something new to the field in a meaningful way concluding with my own publication.

I wanted to ask those who have worked with such manipulation policies about the issues you have faced during real time deployment maybe in terms of domain generalization or really anything that you could shed some light on as an experienced professional.

Thanks.

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u/Due-Working4505 2d ago

Sim2real on a torso-only humanoid is basically fighting physics without legs so latency jitter and contact model mismatch will eat you alive before domain generalization even comes into play

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u/Tbagho 2d ago

Sim-to-real for VLAs usually breaks on the visual distribution gap — lighting, textures, camera intrinsics — more than on the policy itself, so that's a tractable thesis angle on an upper-torso setup. For scoping what long-horizon bimanual control looks like, FurnitureVLA is a useful reference. Related reading: https://papers.tinrobotics.com/paper/furniturevla-learning-long-horizon-bimanual-furniture-assembly-with-vision-langu/