# Comparison of Model-Free and Model-Based Learning-Informed Planning for PointGoal Navigation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.08801 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08801/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 44 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Dec 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Matterport3D: Learning from RGB-D Data in Indoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.06158/) (2017)
- [Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01201/) (2019)
- [AI2-THOR: An Interactive 3D Environment for Visual AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.05474/) (2017)
- [Habitat-Matterport 3D Dataset (HM3D): 1000 Large-scale 3D Environments for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08238/) (2021)
- [On Evaluation of Embodied Navigation Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06757/) (2018)
- [Habitat 2.0: Training Home Assistants to Rearrange their Habitat](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14405/) (2021)
- [Gibson Env: Real-World Perception for Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.10654/) (2018)
- [Object Goal Navigation using Goal-Oriented Semantic Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00643/) (2020)
- [Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping: Towards the Robust-Perception Age](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.05830/) (2016)
- [DD-PPO: Learning Near-Perfect PointGoal Navigators from 2.5 Billion Frames](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.00357/) (2019)
- [Integrated Task and Motion Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01083/) (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)
- [Neural Topological SLAM for Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12256/) (2020)
- [Rearrangement: A Challenge for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01975/) (2020)
- [PONI: Potential Functions for ObjectGoal Navigation with Interaction-free Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.10029/) (2022)
- [Waypoint Models for Instruction-guided Navigation in Continuous Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.02207/) (2021)
- [Habitat-Matterport 3D Semantics Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05633/) (2022)
- [Scene Memory Transformer for Embodied Agents in Long-Horizon Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.03878/) (2019)
- [Occupancy Anticipation for Efficient Exploration and Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.09285/) (2020)
- [Visual Representations for Semantic Target Driven Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.06066/) (2018)
- [No RL, No Simulation: Learning to Navigate without Navigating](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.09470/) (2021)
- [Learning to Map for Active Semantic Goal Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15648/) (2021)
- [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)
- [Is Mapping Necessary for Realistic PointGoal Navigation?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00997/) (2022)
- [Iterative Vision-and-Language Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03087/) (2022)
- [Uncertainty-driven Planner for Exploration and Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.11907/) (2022)
- [TIDEE: Tidying Up Novel Rooms using Visuo-Semantic Commonsense Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10761/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [SemNav: A Model-Based Planner for Zero-Shot Object Goal Navigation Using Vision-Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03516/) (2025)
- [DEUX: Active Exploration for Learning Unsupervised Depth Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06164/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years several learning approaches to point goal navigation in previously unseen environments have been proposed. They vary in the representations of the environments, problem decomposition, and experimental evaluation. In this work, we compare the state-of-the-art Deep Reinforcement Learning based approaches with Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) formulation of the point goal navigation problem. We adapt the (POMDP) sub-goal framework proposed by [1] and modify the component that estimates frontier properties by using partial semantic maps of indoor scenes built from images' semantic segmentation. In addition to the well-known completeness of the model-based approach, we demonstrate that it is robust and efficient in that it leverages informative, learned properties of the frontiers compared to an optimistic frontier-based planner. We also demonstrate its data efficiency compared to the end-to-end deep reinforcement learning approaches. We compare our results against an optimistic planner, ANS and DD-PPO on Matterport3D dataset using the Habitat Simulator. We show comparable, though slightly worse performance than the SOTA DD-PPO approach, yet with far fewer data.