Reinforced Reasoning for Embodied Planning
On the map: LLM reasoning → Spatial and embodied reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Embodied planning requires agents to make coherent multi-step decisions based on dynamic visual observations and natural language goals. While recent vision-language models (VLMs) excel at static perception tasks, they struggle with the temporal reasoning, spatial understanding, and commonsense grounding needed for planning in interactive environments. In this work, we introduce a reinforcement fine-tuning framework that brings R1-style reasoning enhancement into embodied planning. We first distill a high-quality dataset from a powerful closed-source model and perform supervised fine-tuning (SFT) to equip the model with structured decision-making priors. We then design a rule-based reward function tailored to multi-step action quality and optimize the policy via Generalized Reinforced Preference Optimization (GRPO). Our approach is evaluated on Embench, a recent benchmark for interactive embodied tasks, covering both in-domain and out-of-domain scenarios. Experimental results show that our method significantly outperforms models of similar or larger scale, including GPT-4o-mini and 70B+ open-source baselines, and exhibits strong generalization to unseen environments. This work highlights the potential of reinforcement-driven reasoning to advance long-horizon planning in embodied AI.
Key facts. Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 50 of its 56 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 May 2025.
Builds on
50 of 56 references.
Closest ancestors · 4
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Embodied-R: Collaborative Framework for Activating Embodied Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Models via Reinforcement Learning17 Apr
- 2025Embodied-Reasoner: Synergizing Visual Search, Reasoning, and Action for Embodied Interactive Tasks27 Mar
- 2024Robotic Control via Embodied Chain-of-Thought Reasoning11 Jul
- 2023EmbodiedGPT: Vision-Language Pre-Training via Embodied Chain of Thought24 May
Other references · 46
- 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,971
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,459
- 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 9,379
- 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Modelcited by 8,065
- 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,330
- 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,587
- 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,789
- 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,887
- 2022Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordancescited by 2,348
- 2024Expanding Performance Boundaries of Open-Source Multimodal Models with Model, Data, and Test-Time Scalingcited by 1,599
- 2024LlamaFactory: Unified Efficient Fine-Tuning of 100+ Language Modelscited by 1,464
- 2023The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Surveycited by 1,439
34 more
- 2025Kimi k1.5: Scaling Reinforcement Learning with LLMscited by 1,210
- 2019Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Researchcited by 1,191
- 2017AI2-THOR: An Interactive 3D Environment for Visual AIcited by 869
- 2023Vision-Language Models for Vision Tasks: A Surveycited by 839
- 2019ALFRED: A Benchmark for Interpreting Grounded Instructions for Everyday Taskscited by 783
- 2023Multimodal Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 752
- 2025Vision-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 665
- 2022ProgPrompt: Generating Situated Robot Task Plans using Large Language Modelscited by 611
- 2025VLM-R1: A Stable and Generalizable R1-style Large Vision-Language Modelcited by 526
- 2025Visual-RFT: Visual Reinforcement Fine-Tuningcited by 513
- 2025Process Reinforcement through Implicit Rewardscited by 504
- 2025LIMO: Less is More for Reasoningcited by 498
- 2025RAGEN: Understanding Self-Evolution in LLM Agents via Multi-Turn Reinforcement Learningcited by 386
- 2025MM-Eureka: Exploring the Frontiers of Multimodal Reasoning with Rule-based Reinforcement Learningcited by 303
- 2025R1-VL: Learning to Reason with Multimodal Large Language Models via Step-wise Group Relative Policy Optimizationcited by 301
- 2024A Survey on Vision-Language-Action Models for Embodied AIcited by 279
- 2021A Survey of Embodied AI: From Simulators to Research Taskscited by 261
- 2025VideoChat-R1: Enhancing Spatio-Temporal Perception via Reinforcement Fine-Tuningcited by 255
- 2025EmbodiedBench: Comprehensive Benchmarking Multi-modal Large Language Models for Vision-Driven Embodied Agentscited by 221
- 2025Hi Robot: Open-Ended Instruction Following with Hierarchical Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 221
- 2024Trial and Error: Exploration-Based Trajectory Optimization for LLM Agentscited by 197
- 2025Multimodal Chain-of-Thought Reasoning: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 182
- 2023Compositional Chain-of-Thought Prompting for Large Multimodal Modelscited by 164
- 2023Look Before You Leap: Unveiling the Power of GPT-4V in Robotic Vision-Language Planningcited by 161
- 2024Multi-Step Reasoning with Large Language Models, a Surveycited by 143
- 2023Generalized Planning in PDDL Domains with Pretrained Large Language Modelscited by 139
- 2024Exploring the Reasoning Abilities of Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs): A Comprehensive Survey on Emerging Trends in Multimodal Reasoningcited by 136
- 2025RoboBrain: A Unified Brain Model for Robotic Manipulation from Abstract to Concretecited by 135
- 2023Embodied Task Planning with Large Language Modelscited by 84
- 2024HiRT: Enhancing Robotic Control with Hierarchical Robot Transformerscited by 75
- 2024KAM-CoT: Knowledge Augmented Multimodal Chain-of-Thoughts Reasoningcited by 60
- 2024A Survey on Robotics with Foundation Models: toward Embodied AIcited by 56
- 2023Context-Aware Planning and Environment-Aware Memory for Instruction Following Embodied Agentscited by 33
- 2025World Modeling Makes a Better Planner: Dual Preference Optimization for Embodied Task Planningcited by 26
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 6; 2026: 6.
12 papers.
- 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Surveycited by 69
- 2025A Survey on Agentic Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 23
- 2025ERA: Transforming VLMs into Embodied Agents via Embodied Prior Learning and Online Reinforcement Learningcited by 10
- 2025Pelican-VL 1.0: A Foundation Brain Model for Embodied Intelligencecited by 10
- 2026RoboAgent: Chaining Basic Capabilities for Embodied Task Planningcited by 7
- 2025Bridging VLMs and Embodied Intelligence with Deliberate Practice Policy Optimizationcited by 3
- 2026ELITE: Experiential Learning and Intent-Aware Transfer for Self-improving Embodied Agentscited by 3
- 2025RoboGPT-R1: Enhancing Robot Task Planning with Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
- 2026Seeing Isn't Believing: Mitigating Belief Inertia via Active Intervention in Embodied Agentscited by 1
- 2026RoboEvolve: Co-Evolving Planner-Simulator for Robotic Manipulation with Limited Datacited by 1
- 2026VISOR: VIsual Spatial Object Reasoning for Language-driven Object Navigationcited by 0
- 2026EmbodiedMind: Adaptive Data Curation and Prefix-Tree Reinforcement Learning for Efficient Embodied Intelligencecited by 0
- 2026EmbodiedMind: Adaptive Data Curation and Prefix-Tree Reinforcement Learning for Efficient Embodied Intelligence17 Sep 2026
- 2026RoboEvolve: Co-Evolving Planner-Simulator for Robotic Manipulation with Limited Data13 May 2026
- 2026Seeing Isn't Believing: Mitigating Belief Inertia via Active Intervention in Embodied Agents19 Apr 2026
- 2026RoboAgent: Chaining Basic Capabilities for Embodied Task Planning9 Apr 2026
- 2026ELITE: Experiential Learning and Intent-Aware Transfer for Self-improving Embodied Agents25 Mar 2026
- 2026VISOR: VIsual Spatial Object Reasoning for Language-driven Object Navigation7 Feb 2026
- 2025Bridging VLMs and Embodied Intelligence with Deliberate Practice Policy Optimization20 Nov 2025
- 2025Pelican-VL 1.0: A Foundation Brain Model for Embodied Intelligence30 Oct 2025
- 2025RoboGPT-R1: Enhancing Robot Task Planning with Reinforcement Learning16 Oct 2025
- 2025ERA: Transforming VLMs into Embodied Agents via Embodied Prior Learning and Online Reinforcement Learning14 Oct 2025
- 2025A Survey on Agentic Multimodal Large Language Models13 Oct 2025
- 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey18 Aug 2025
Similar, not cited
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- 2026Plan-Bench: Can Existing VLMs Go Well Beyond Perception to Reason and Plan in Embodied Worlds?
- 2025Visual Planning: Let's Think Only with Images
- 2025Embodied-R1: Reinforced Embodied Reasoning for General Robotic Manipulation
- 2025RFTF: Reinforcement Fine-tuning for Embodied Agents with Temporal Feedback