Extreme Length Generalization in a Compact Recurrent Architecture for One-Shot Exploration

Abstract: Autonomous robots on one-shot missions run over horizons far longer than the trajectories seen during training, under a fixed onboard compute budget. We present FRANK, a 507K-parameter recurrent architecture that combines tau-gated recurrent modules, content-addressable memory, and a feedforward reflex pathway. We evaluate it against recurrent, state-space, and reduced modular baselines at matched parameter count on four algorithmic sequence tasks, trained at length 5-20 and evaluated out to two million tokens. At 100,000x the maximum training length, 6 of 10 FRANK seeds retain exactly 100.0% accuracy, while none of the 50 baseline configurations does, five architectures at ten seeds each with none left incomplete (Fisher exact, two-sided p = 4.2E-6. Targeted lesions across the four tasks yield four distinct component-reliance profiles, consistent with task-dependent allocation across the recurrent, memory, and reflex pathways. Separately, a FRANK policy trained in simulation drives a physical ground vehicle to commanded waypoints through obstacles without teleoperation.