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arXiv · 2604.19522

GenerativeMPC: VLM-RAG-guided Whole-Body MPC with Virtual Impedance for Bimanual Mobile Manipulation

Marcelino Julio Fernando·Miguel Altamirano Cabrera·Jeffrin Sam·Yara Mahmoud·Konstantin Gubernatorov·Dzmitry Tsetserukou
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Abstract

Bimanual mobile manipulation requires a seamless integration between high-level semantic reasoning and safe, compliant physical interaction - a challenge that end-to-end models approach opaquely and classical controllers lack the context to address. This paper presents GenerativeMPC, a hierarchical cyber-physical framework that explicitly bridges semantic scene understanding with physical control parameters for bimanual mobile manipulators. The system utilizes a Vision-Language Model with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (VLM-RAG) to translate visual and linguistic context into grounded control constraints, specifically outputting dynamic velocity limits and safety margins for a Whole-Body Model Predictive Controller (MPC). Simultaneously, the VLM-RAG module modulates virtual stiffness and damping gains for a unified impedance-admittance controller, enabling context-aware compliance during human-robot interaction. Our framework leverages an experience-driven vector database to ensure consistent parameter grounding without retraining. Experimental results in MuJoCo, IsaacSim, and on a physical bimanual platform confirm a 60% speed reduction near humans and safe, socially-aware navigation and manipulation through semantic-to-physical parameter grounding. This work advances the field of human-centric cybernetics by grounding large-scale cognitive models into predictable, high-frequency physical control loops.

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Marcelino Julio Fernando, Miguel Altamirano Cabrera, Jeffrin Sam, Yara Mahmoud, Konstantin Gubernatorov, Dzmitry Tsetserukou. 2026-04-21. GenerativeMPC: VLM-RAG-guided Whole-Body MPC with Virtual Impedance for Bimanual Mobile Manipulation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.19522

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