# The ThreeDWorld Transport Challenge: A Visually Guided Task-and-Motion Planning Benchmark for Physically Realistic Embodied AI

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.14025 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14025/

## Key facts

- Cited by 65 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 38 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Mar 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [Matterport3D: Learning from RGB-D Data in Indoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.06158/) (2017)
- [Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10897/) (2019)
- [Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01201/) (2019)
- [Vision-and-Language Navigation: Interpreting visually-grounded navigation instructions in real environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07280/) (2017)
- [AI2-THOR: An Interactive 3D Environment for Visual AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.05474/) (2017)
- [ALFRED: A Benchmark for Interpreting Grounded Instructions for Everyday Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01734/) (2019)
- [RLBench: The Robot Learning Benchmark & Learning Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12271/) (2019)
- [SAPIEN: A SimulAted Part-based Interactive ENvironment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08515/) (2020)
- [CLEVRER: CoLlision Events for Video REpresentation and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.01442/) (2019)
- [Gibson Env: Real-World Perception for Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.10654/) (2018)
- [Semantic Scene Completion from a Single Depth Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08974/) (2016)
- [Object Goal Navigation using Goal-Oriented Semantic Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00643/) (2020)
- [VirtualHome: Simulating Household Activities via Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07011/) (2018)
- [Target-driven Visual Navigation in Indoor Scenes using Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.05143/) (2016)
- [Embodied Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.11543/) (2017)
- [Learning to Explore using Active Neural SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05155/) (2020)
- [Integrated Task and Motion Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01083/) (2020)
- [ThreeDWorld: A Platform for Interactive Multi-Modal Physical Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.04954/) (2020)
- [Cognitive Mapping and Planning for Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.03920/) (2017)
- [Semi-parametric Topological Memory for Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.00653/) (2018)
- [Learning to Navigate in Complex Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03673/) (2016)
- [RoboTHOR: An Open Simulation-to-Real Embodied AI Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06799/) (2020)
- [IQA: Visual Question Answering in Interactive Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.03316/) (2017)
- [Rearrangement: A Challenge for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01975/) (2020)
- [Watch-And-Help: A Challenge for Social Perception and Human-AI Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.09890/) (2020)
- [Learning Exploration Policies for Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.01959/) (2019)
- [Building Generalizable Agents with a Realistic and Rich 3D Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.02209/) (2018)
- [Occupancy Anticipation for Efficient Exploration and Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.09285/) (2020)
- [Look, Listen, and Act: Towards Audio-Visual Embodied Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.11684/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 65)

- [Habitat 2.0: Training Home Assistants to Rearrange their Habitat](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14405/) (2021)
- [VIMA: General Robot Manipulation with Multimodal Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03094/) (2022)
- [ProcTHOR: Large-Scale Embodied AI Using Procedural Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.06994/) (2022)
- [ManiSkill2: A Unified Benchmark for Generalizable Manipulation Skills](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04659/) (2023)
- [Building Cooperative Embodied Agents Modularly with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02485/) (2023)
- [TidyBot: Personalized Robot Assistance with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05658/) (2023)
- [iGibson 2.0: Object-Centric Simulation for Robot Learning of Everyday Household Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03272/) (2021)
- [BEHAVIOR: Benchmark for Everyday Household Activities in Virtual, Interactive, and Ecological Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03332/) (2021)
- [BEHAVIOR-1K: A Human-Centered, Embodied AI Benchmark with 1,000 Everyday Activities and Realistic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09227/) (2024)
- [SafeAgentBench: A Benchmark for Safe Task Planning of Embodied LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13178/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model-Based Game Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02039/) (2024)
- [PlasticineLab: A Soft-Body Manipulation Benchmark with Differentiable Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03311/) (2021)
- [VisualAgentBench: Towards Large Multimodal Models as Visual Foundation Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06327/) (2024)
- [Weakly-Supervised Multi-Granularity Map Learning for Vision-and-Language Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07506/) (2022)
- [ARNOLD: A Benchmark for Language-Grounded Task Learning With Continuous States in Realistic 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04321/) (2023)
- [A2Nav: Action-Aware Zero-Shot Robot Navigation by Exploiting Vision-and-Language Ability of Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07997/) (2023)
- [TASKOGRAPHY: Evaluating robot task planning over large 3D scene graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05006/) (2022)
- [GRUtopia: Dream General Robots in a City at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10943/) (2024)
- [Dynamic Visual Reasoning by Learning Differentiable Physics Models from Video and Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.15358/) (2021)
- [SPOC: Imitating Shortest Paths in Simulation Enables Effective Navigation and Manipulation in the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02976/) (2023)
- [Multi-skill Mobile Manipulation for Object Rearrangement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.02778/) (2022)
- [Retrospectives on the Embodied AI Workshop](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06849/) (2022)
- [Curious Representation Learning for Embodied Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01060/) (2021)
- [Open-Ended Instructable Embodied Agents with Memory-Augmented Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15127/) (2023)
- [VideoGameBench: Can Vision-Language Models complete popular video games?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18134/) (2025)
- [LLaMAR: Long-Horizon Planning for Multi-Agent Robots in Partially Observable Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10031/) (2024)
- [TIDEE: Tidying Up Novel Rooms using Visuo-Semantic Commonsense Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10761/) (2022)
- [Mini-BEHAVIOR: A Procedurally Generated Benchmark for Long-horizon Decision-Making in Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01824/) (2023)
- [PhysGame: Uncovering Physical Commonsense Violations in Gameplay Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01800/) (2024)
- [ManiSkill-HAB: A Benchmark for Low-Level Manipulation in Home Rearrangement Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13211/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce a visually-guided and physics-driven task-and-motion planning benchmark, which we call the ThreeDWorld Transport Challenge. In this challenge, an embodied agent equipped with two 9-DOF articulated arms is spawned randomly in a simulated physical home environment. The agent is required to find a small set of objects scattered around the house, pick them up, and transport them to a desired final location. We also position containers around the house that can be used as tools to assist with transporting objects efficiently. To complete the task, an embodied agent must plan a sequence of actions to change the state of a large number of objects in the face of realistic physical constraints. We build this benchmark challenge using the ThreeDWorld simulation: a virtual 3D environment where all objects respond to physics, and where can be controlled using fully physics-driven navigation and interaction API. We evaluate several existing agents on this benchmark. Experimental results suggest that: 1) a pure RL model struggles on this challenge; 2) hierarchical planning-based agents can transport some objects but still far from solving this task. We anticipate that this benchmark will empower researchers to develop more intelligent physics-driven robots for the physical world.