OctoNav: Towards Generalist Embodied Navigation

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gao, Chen, Jin, Liankai, Peng, Xingyu, Zhang, Jiazhao, Deng, Yue, Li, Annan, Wang, He, Liu, Si
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911000267063296
author Gao, Chen
Jin, Liankai
Peng, Xingyu
Zhang, Jiazhao
Deng, Yue
Li, Annan
Wang, He
Liu, Si
author_facet Gao, Chen
Jin, Liankai
Peng, Xingyu
Zhang, Jiazhao
Deng, Yue
Li, Annan
Wang, He
Liu, Si
contents Embodied navigation stands as a foundation pillar within the broader pursuit of embodied AI. However, previous navigation research is divided into different tasks/capabilities, e.g., ObjNav, ImgNav and VLN, where they differ in task objectives and modalities, making datasets and methods are designed individually. In this work, we take steps toward generalist navigation agents, which can follow free-form instructions that include arbitrary compounds of multi-modal and multi-capability. To achieve this, we propose a large-scale benchmark and corresponding method, termed OctoNav-Bench and OctoNav-R1. Specifically, OctoNav-Bench features continuous environments and is constructed via a designed annotation pipeline. We thoroughly craft instruction-trajectory pairs, where instructions are diverse in free-form with arbitrary modality and capability. Also, we construct a Think-Before-Action (TBA-CoT) dataset within OctoNav-Bench to provide the thinking process behind actions. For OctoNav-R1, we build it upon MLLMs and adapt it to a VLA-type model, which can produce low-level actions solely based on 2D visual observations. Moreover, we design a Hybrid Training Paradigm (HTP) that consists of three stages, i.e., Action-/TBA-SFT, Nav-GPRO, and Online RL stages. Each stage contains specifically designed learning policies and rewards. Importantly, for TBA-SFT and Nav-GRPO designs, we are inspired by the OpenAI-o1 and DeepSeek-R1, which show impressive reasoning ability via thinking-before-answer. Thus, we aim to investigate how to achieve thinking-before-action in the embodied navigation field, to improve model's reasoning ability toward generalists. Specifically, we propose TBA-SFT to utilize the TBA-CoT dataset to fine-tune the model as a cold-start phrase and then leverage Nav-GPRO to improve its thinking ability. Finally, OctoNav-R1 shows superior performance compared with previous methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_09839
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle OctoNav: Towards Generalist Embodied Navigation
Gao, Chen
Jin, Liankai
Peng, Xingyu
Zhang, Jiazhao
Deng, Yue
Li, Annan
Wang, He
Liu, Si
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
Embodied navigation stands as a foundation pillar within the broader pursuit of embodied AI. However, previous navigation research is divided into different tasks/capabilities, e.g., ObjNav, ImgNav and VLN, where they differ in task objectives and modalities, making datasets and methods are designed individually. In this work, we take steps toward generalist navigation agents, which can follow free-form instructions that include arbitrary compounds of multi-modal and multi-capability. To achieve this, we propose a large-scale benchmark and corresponding method, termed OctoNav-Bench and OctoNav-R1. Specifically, OctoNav-Bench features continuous environments and is constructed via a designed annotation pipeline. We thoroughly craft instruction-trajectory pairs, where instructions are diverse in free-form with arbitrary modality and capability. Also, we construct a Think-Before-Action (TBA-CoT) dataset within OctoNav-Bench to provide the thinking process behind actions. For OctoNav-R1, we build it upon MLLMs and adapt it to a VLA-type model, which can produce low-level actions solely based on 2D visual observations. Moreover, we design a Hybrid Training Paradigm (HTP) that consists of three stages, i.e., Action-/TBA-SFT, Nav-GPRO, and Online RL stages. Each stage contains specifically designed learning policies and rewards. Importantly, for TBA-SFT and Nav-GRPO designs, we are inspired by the OpenAI-o1 and DeepSeek-R1, which show impressive reasoning ability via thinking-before-answer. Thus, we aim to investigate how to achieve thinking-before-action in the embodied navigation field, to improve model's reasoning ability toward generalists. Specifically, we propose TBA-SFT to utilize the TBA-CoT dataset to fine-tune the model as a cold-start phrase and then leverage Nav-GPRO to improve its thinking ability. Finally, OctoNav-R1 shows superior performance compared with previous methods.
title OctoNav: Towards Generalist Embodied Navigation
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09839