Test-Time Compute for Humanoid Behavior Foundation Models

arXiv:2610.14896 · cs.RO · Submitted 2026-10-10 · Read on arXiv

cs.RO

Submitted: 2026-10-10

Updated: 2026-10-14

Comments: The project page is available at https://bfmttc.github.io/

Code: https://github.com/google-deepmind/mujoco_warp

Project page: https://bfmttc.github.io

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

The gist: Humanoid Behavior Foundation Models (BFMs) can execute impressive motions, but downstream applications such as loco-manipulation demand high whole-body positional accuracy.

Terminology

Abstract

Humanoid Behavior Foundation Models (BFMs) can execute impressive motions, but downstream applications such as loco-manipulation demand high whole-body positional accuracy. Existing BFMs suffer from a systematic command-execution gap, where executed motions deviate from desired ones. We show that additional test-time compute can improve execution without retraining the BFM. First, we introduce Test-Time Command Optimization (TTCO), which adapts the input command to the specific BFM to produce an executed trajectory closer to the desired motion. TTCO finds such commands by sampling-based optimization through closed-loop simulations of the BFM and robot dynamics. Across three BFMs on the AMASS dataset, TTCO reduces mean global body-position error by 79-84% in simulation. Second, we analyze test-time compute scaling and derive an approximate compute-optimal strategy that can sustain performance gains as the compute budget increases. Third, TTCO can generate BFM-specific action labels from recorded robot trajectories without requiring the original teleoperation body-motion commands. Simulation and real-robot experiments show that these labels are effective for training high-level loco-manipulation policies. This method also supports reusing existing demonstrations across BFMs.

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