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Main Authors: Lin, Wenjun, Zhang, Jensen, Cai, Kaitong, Wang, Keze
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.18477
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author Lin, Wenjun
Zhang, Jensen
Cai, Kaitong
Wang, Keze
author_facet Lin, Wenjun
Zhang, Jensen
Cai, Kaitong
Wang, Keze
contents We present STORM (Search-Guided Generative World Models), a novel framework for spatio-temporal reasoning in robotic manipulation that unifies diffusion-based action generation, conditional video prediction, and search-based planning. Unlike prior Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models that rely on abstract latent dynamics or delegate reasoning to language components, STORM grounds planning in explicit visual rollouts, enabling interpretable and foresight-driven decision-making. A diffusion-based VLA policy proposes diverse candidate actions, a generative video world model simulates their visual and reward outcomes, and Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) selectively refines plans through lookahead evaluation. Experiments on the SimplerEnv manipulation benchmark demonstrate that STORM achieves a new state-of-the-art average success rate of 51.0 percent, outperforming strong baselines such as CogACT. Reward-augmented video prediction substantially improves spatio-temporal fidelity and task relevance, reducing Frechet Video Distance by over 75 percent. Moreover, STORM exhibits robust re-planning and failure recovery behavior, highlighting the advantages of search-guided generative world models for long-horizon robotic manipulation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_18477
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publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle STORM: Search-Guided Generative World Models for Robotic Manipulation
Lin, Wenjun
Zhang, Jensen
Cai, Kaitong
Wang, Keze
Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
We present STORM (Search-Guided Generative World Models), a novel framework for spatio-temporal reasoning in robotic manipulation that unifies diffusion-based action generation, conditional video prediction, and search-based planning. Unlike prior Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models that rely on abstract latent dynamics or delegate reasoning to language components, STORM grounds planning in explicit visual rollouts, enabling interpretable and foresight-driven decision-making. A diffusion-based VLA policy proposes diverse candidate actions, a generative video world model simulates their visual and reward outcomes, and Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) selectively refines plans through lookahead evaluation. Experiments on the SimplerEnv manipulation benchmark demonstrate that STORM achieves a new state-of-the-art average success rate of 51.0 percent, outperforming strong baselines such as CogACT. Reward-augmented video prediction substantially improves spatio-temporal fidelity and task relevance, reducing Frechet Video Distance by over 75 percent. Moreover, STORM exhibits robust re-planning and failure recovery behavior, highlighting the advantages of search-guided generative world models for long-horizon robotic manipulation.
title STORM: Search-Guided Generative World Models for Robotic Manipulation
topic Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.18477