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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01715 |
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| _version_ | 1866913972905574400 |
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| author | Germann, Ida Mints, Mark O. Neubert, Peer |
| author_facet | Germann, Ida Mints, Mark O. Neubert, Peer |
| contents | Terrain traversability estimation is crucial for autonomous robots, especially in unstructured environments where visual cues and reasoning play a key role. While vision-language models (VLMs) offer potential for zero-shot estimation, the problem remains inherently ill-posed. To explore this, we introduce a small dataset of human-annotated water traversability ratings, revealing that while estimations are subjective, human raters still show some consensus. Additionally, we propose a simple pipeline that integrates VLMs for zero-shot traversability estimation. Our experiments reveal mixed results, suggesting that current foundation models are not yet suitable for practical deployment but provide valuable insights for further research. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_01715 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Towards Zero-Shot Terrain Traversability Estimation: Challenges and Opportunities Germann, Ida Mints, Mark O. Neubert, Peer Robotics Terrain traversability estimation is crucial for autonomous robots, especially in unstructured environments where visual cues and reasoning play a key role. While vision-language models (VLMs) offer potential for zero-shot estimation, the problem remains inherently ill-posed. To explore this, we introduce a small dataset of human-annotated water traversability ratings, revealing that while estimations are subjective, human raters still show some consensus. Additionally, we propose a simple pipeline that integrates VLMs for zero-shot traversability estimation. Our experiments reveal mixed results, suggesting that current foundation models are not yet suitable for practical deployment but provide valuable insights for further research. |
| title | Towards Zero-Shot Terrain Traversability Estimation: Challenges and Opportunities |
| topic | Robotics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01715 |