# A Survey on Human-aware Robot Navigation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.11650 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.11650/

## Key facts

- Cited by 24 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 120 of its 348 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jun 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 120)

- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [The Kinetics Human Action Video Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.06950/) (2017)
- [Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06907/) (2017)
- [Matterport3D: Learning from RGB-D Data in Indoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.06158/) (2017)
- [Spatial Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks for Skeleton-Based Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.07455/) (2018)
- [Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01201/) (2019)
- [OpenPose: Realtime Multi-Person 2D Pose Estimation using Part Affinity Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08008/) (2018)
- [Realtime Multi-Person 2D Pose Estimation using Part Affinity Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08050/) (2016)
- [End to End Learning for Self-Driving Cars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.07316/) (2016)
- [Stacked Hourglass Networks for Human Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.06937/) (2016)
- [The Replica Dataset: A Digital Replica of Indoor Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05797/) (2019)
- [AI2-THOR: An Interactive 3D Environment for Visual AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.05474/) (2017)
- [A Survey on Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.08114/) (2017)
- [Playing for Data: Ground Truth from Computer Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.02192/) (2016)
- [Scaling Egocentric Vision: The EPIC-KITCHENS Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02748/) (2018)
- [Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation using Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.10593/) (2017)
- [Keep it SMPL: Automatic Estimation of 3D Human Pose and Shape from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.08128/) (2016)
- [NTU RGB+D: A Large Scale Dataset for 3D Human Activity Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.02808/) (2016)
- [Sim-to-Real Transfer of Robotic Control with Dynamics Randomization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.06537/) (2017)
- [On Evaluation of Embodied Navigation Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06757/) (2018)
- [Rescaling Egocentric Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.13256/) (2020)
- [Hollywood in Homes: Crowdsourcing Data Collection for Activity Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.01753/) (2016)
- [NTU RGB+D 120: A Large-Scale Benchmark for 3D Human Activity Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04757/) (2019)
- [A Brief Survey of Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.05866/) (2017)
- [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)
- [VirtualHome: Simulating Household Activities via Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07011/) (2018)
- [Reinforcement Learning with Unsupervised Auxiliary Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.05397/) (2016)
- [3D human pose estimation in video with temporal convolutions and semi-supervised training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11742/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Vision-and-Language Navigation Today and Tomorrow: A Survey in the Era of Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07035/) (2024)
- [Principles and Guidelines for Evaluating Social Robot Navigation Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16740/) (2023)
- [Mem2Ego: Empowering Vision-Language Models with Global-to-Ego Memory for Long-Horizon Embodied Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14254/) (2025)
- [Conflict Avoidance in Social Navigation -- a Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12113/) (2021)
- [VL-TGS: Trajectory Generation and Selection using Vision Language Models in Mapless Outdoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.02454/) (2024)
- [From Cognition to Precognition: A Future-Aware Framework for Social Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.13244/) (2024)
- [HabiCrowd: A High Performance Simulator for Crowd-Aware Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.11377/) (2023)
- [Exploiting Proximity-Aware Tasks for Embodied Social Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00767/) (2022)
- [Exploring 3D Human Pose Estimation and Forecasting from the Robot's Perspective: The HARPER Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14447/) (2024)
- [Perception for Humanoid Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15616/) (2023)
- [Following the Human Thread in Social Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11327/) (2024)
- [Learning Personalized Human-Aware Robot Navigation Using Virtual Reality Demonstrations from a User Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14741/) (2022)
- [Variational Meta Reinforcement Learning for Social Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03211/) (2022)
- [hear-your-action: human action recognition by ultrasound active sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08087/) (2023)
- [TrajPRed: Trajectory Prediction with Region-based Relation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06971/) (2024)
- [Edge Graph Intelligence: Reciprocally Empowering Edge Networks with Graph Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15320/) (2024)
- [Image-based Navigation in Real-World Environments via Multiple Mid-level Representations: Fusion Models, Benchmark and Efficient Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.01069/) (2022)
- [Socially aware navigation for mobile robots: a survey on deep reinforcement learning approaches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.00049/) (2025)
- [Modeling Human Behavior Part I -- Learning and Belief Approaches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.06485/) (2022)
- [Socially Cognizant Robotics for a Technology Enhanced Society](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.18303/) (2023)
- [A Comparative Study of Human Motion Models in Reinforcement Learning Algorithms for Social Robot Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.15127/) (2025)
- [Learning to Navigate Socially Through Proactive Risk Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.07871/) (2025)
- [HINT-Plan: Human Intention-Aware Robot Task Planning in Context-Rich Environments using Vision Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.17771/) (2026)
- [PRISM: Predictive Representation of Interaction Style and Motion for Social Robot Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.18125/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Intelligent systems are increasingly part of our everyday lives and have been integrated seamlessly to the point where it is difficult to imagine a world without them. Physical manifestations of those systems on the other hand, in the form of embodied agents or robots, have so far been used only for specific applications and are often limited to functional roles (e.g. in the industry, entertainment and military fields). Given the current growth and innovation in the research communities concerned with the topics of robot navigation, human-robot-interaction and human activity recognition, it seems like this might soon change. Robots are increasingly easy to obtain and use and the acceptance of them in general is growing. However, the design of a socially compliant robot that can function as a companion needs to take various areas of research into account. This paper is concerned with the navigation aspect of a socially-compliant robot and provides a survey of existing solutions for the relevant areas of research as well as an outlook on possible future directions.