DRAE: Dynamic Retrieval-Augmented Expert Networks for Lifelong Learning and Task Adaptation in Robotics

Yayu Long, Kewei Chen, Long Jin, Mingsheng Shang


Abstract
We introduce Dynamic Retrieval-Augmented Expert Networks (DRAE), a groundbreaking architecture that addresses the challenges of lifelong learning, catastrophic forgetting, and task adaptation by combining the dynamic routing capabilities of Mixture-of-Experts (MoE); leveraging the knowledge-enhancement power of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG); incorporating a novel hierarchical reinforcement learning (RL) framework; and coordinating through ReflexNet-SchemaPlanner-HyperOptima (RSHO).DRAE dynamically routes expert models via a sparse MoE gating mechanism, enabling efficient resource allocation while leveraging external knowledge through parametric retrieval (P-RAG) to augment the learning process. We propose a new RL framework with ReflexNet for low-level task execution, SchemaPlanner for symbolic reasoning, and HyperOptima for long-term context modeling, ensuring continuous adaptation and memory retention. Experimental results show that DRAE significantly outperforms baseline approaches in long-term task retention and knowledge reuse, achieving an average task success rate of 82.5% across a set of dynamic robotic manipulation tasks, compared to 74.2% for traditional MoE models. Furthermore, DRAE maintains an extremely low forgetting rate, outperforming state-of-the-art methods in catastrophic forgetting mitigation. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in enabling flexible, scalable, and efficient lifelong learning for robotics.
Anthology ID:
2025.acl-long.1127
Volume:
Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
Month:
July
Year:
2025
Address:
Vienna, Austria
Editors:
Wanxiang Che, Joyce Nabende, Ekaterina Shutova, Mohammad Taher Pilehvar
Venue:
ACL
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Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
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Pages:
23098–23141
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URL:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingestion-acl-25/2025.acl-long.1127/
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Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Yayu Long, Kewei Chen, Long Jin, and Mingsheng Shang. 2025. DRAE: Dynamic Retrieval-Augmented Expert Networks for Lifelong Learning and Task Adaptation in Robotics. In Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pages 23098–23141, Vienna, Austria. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
DRAE: Dynamic Retrieval-Augmented Expert Networks for Lifelong Learning and Task Adaptation in Robotics (Long et al., ACL 2025)
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https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingestion-acl-25/2025.acl-long.1127.pdf