aiqbench analysis
This research introduces TVCache, a training-free framework that accelerates Vision-Language-Action models by leveraging the synergy between textual semantics and visual grounding to optimize token caching. By filtering attention heads based on information focus and selecting cache layers guided by entropy differences, the method significantly improves task success rates in robotic control while reducing computational costs. The approach offers a practical, plug-and-play solution for deploying efficient VLA models without requiring additional training data or resources.
Text-Vision Synergistic Token Caching: A Training-Free Framework for Efficient Vision-Language-Action Inference
arXiv:2609.34319v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models enable generalizable robotic control but remain computationally expensive. Token caching provides a training-free, plug-and-play acceleration alternative. However, existing VLA caching does not fully exploit a key inductive bias of VLA models: text-vision synergy, wherein textual semantics guide the precise visual grounding of task-relevant regions. In particular, existing designs insufficiently account for head-wise reliability in attention aggregation and layer-wise stability in cache reuse. To address this, we propose Text-Vision Synergistic Token Caching (TVCache), a training-free framework for efficient VLA inference. TVCache filters attention heads based on text-vision information focus to improve task-relevant and physically consistent visual grounding. Concurrently, we introduce a reuse-layer selection mechanism guided by text-vision entropy differences to avoid caching unstable representations and improve cache resource allocation. Extensive experiments across four representative VLA models, two simulation benchmarks, and real-world robotic tasks demonstrate the effectiveness and generality of TVCache. At matched token-retention ratios, TVCache consistently improves task success over existing VLA caching with comparable computational cost. On OpenVLA-OFT, it improves average success by up to 14.5 percentage points over VLA-Cache at 12.5% retention while reducing FLOPs by 2.45x relative to full-token inference.
Abstract:Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models enable generalizable robotic control but remain computationally expensive. Token caching provides a training-free, plug-and-play acceleration alternative. However, existing VLA caching does not fully exploit a key inductive bias of VLA models: text-vision synergy, wherein textual semantics guide the precise visual grounding of task-relevant regions. In particular, existing designs insufficiently account for head-wise reliability in attention aggregation and layer-wise stability in cache reuse. To address this, we propose Text-Vision Synergistic Token Caching (TVCache), a training-free framework for efficient VLA inference. TVCache filters attention heads based on text-vision information focus to improve task-relevant and physically consistent visual grounding. Concurrently, we introduce a reuse-layer selection mechanism guided by text-vision entropy differences to avoid caching unstable representations and improve cache resource allocation. Extensive experiments across four representative VLA models, two simulation benchmarks, and real-world robotic tasks demonstrate the effectiveness and generality of TVCache. At matched token-retention ratios, TVCache consistently improves task success over existing VLA caching with comparable computational cost. On OpenVLA-OFT, it improves average success by up to 14.5 percentage points over VLA-Cache at 12.5% retention while reducing FLOPs by 2.45x relative to full-token inference.
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV); Robotics (cs.RO)
arXiv:2609.34319 [cs.CV]
(or arXiv:2609.34319v1 [cs.CV] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.34319 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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Full text under the publisher's open licence · 284 words
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