Robust-R1: Degradation-Aware Reasoning for Robust Visual Understanding

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17532v1
• Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 12:56:17 GMT
• Title: Robust-R1: Degradation-Aware Reasoning for Robust Visual Understanding
• Authors: Jiaqi Tang, Jianmin Chen, Wei Wei, Xiaogang Xu, Runtao Liu, Xiangyu Wu, Qipeng Xie, Jiafei Wu, Lei Zhang, Qifeng Chen,
• Abstract summary: Existing robust MLLMs rely on implicit training/adaptation that focuses solely on visual encoder generalization.<n>We propose Robust-R1, a novel framework that explicitly models visual degradations through structured reasoning chains.<n>Our approach integrates: (i) supervised fine-tuning for degradation-aware reasoning foundations, (ii) reward-driven alignment for accurately perceiving degradation parameters, and (iii) dynamic reasoning depth scaling adapted to degradation intensity.
• Score: 54.05243949024302
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Multimodal Large Language Models struggle to maintain reliable performance under extreme real-world visual degradations, which impede their practical robustness. Existing robust MLLMs predominantly rely on implicit training/adaptation that focuses solely on visual encoder generalization, suffering from limited interpretability and isolated optimization. To overcome these limitations, we propose Robust-R1, a novel framework that explicitly models visual degradations through structured reasoning chains. Our approach integrates: (i) supervised fine-tuning for degradation-aware reasoning foundations, (ii) reward-driven alignment for accurately perceiving degradation parameters, and (iii) dynamic reasoning depth scaling adapted to degradation intensity. To facilitate this approach, we introduce a specialized 11K dataset featuring realistic degradations synthesized across four critical real-world visual processing stages, each annotated with structured chains connecting degradation parameters, perceptual influence, pristine semantic reasoning chain, and conclusion. Comprehensive evaluations demonstrate state-of-the-art robustness: Robust-R1 outperforms all general and robust baselines on the real-world degradation benchmark R-Bench, while maintaining superior anti-degradation performance under multi-intensity adversarial degradations on MMMB, MMStar, and RealWorldQA.

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