mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

TrackVLA++: Unleashing Reasoning and Memory Capabilities in VLA Models for Embodied Visual Tracking

arXiv 2510.07134 ↗First posted 8 Oct 2025cs.RO cs.AI cs.CVcited by 16

On the map: Vision-language-action models → Reasoning and chain-of-thought in VLA

Abstract (arXiv)

Embodied Visual Tracking (EVT) is a fundamental ability that underpins practical applications, such as companion robots, guidance robots and service assistants, where continuously following moving targets is essential. Recent advances have enabled language-guided tracking in complex and unstructured scenes. However, existing approaches lack explicit spatial reasoning and effective temporal memory, causing failures under severe occlusions or in the presence of similar-looking distractors. To address these challenges, we present TrackVLA++, a novel Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model that enhances embodied visual tracking with two key modules, a spatial reasoning mechanism and a Target Identification Memory (TIM). The reasoning module introduces a Chain-of-Thought paradigm, termed Polar-CoT, which infers the target's relative position and encodes it as a compact polar-coordinate token for action prediction. Guided by these spatial priors, the TIM employs a gated update strategy to preserve long-horizon target memory, ensuring spatiotemporal consistency and mitigating target loss during extended occlusions. Extensive experiments show that TrackVLA++ achieves state-of-the-art performance on public benchmarks across both egocentric and multi-camera settings. On the challenging EVT-Bench DT split, TrackVLA++ surpasses the previous leading approach by 5.1 and 12, respectively. Furthermore, TrackVLA++ exhibits strong zero-shot generalization, enabling robust real-world tracking in dynamic and occluded scenarios.

Key facts. Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning and chain-of-thought in VLA, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 47 of its 57 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Oct 2025.

Builds on

47 of 57 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025InSpire: Vision-Language-Action Models with Intrinsic Spatial Reasoning20 May
  2. 2025CoT-VLA: Visual Chain-of-Thought Reasoning for Vision-Language-Action Models27 Mar
  3. 2024Robotic Control via Embodied Chain-of-Thought Reasoning11 Jul

Other references · 44

  1. 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
  2. 2023Segment Anythingcited by 8,158
  3. 2023Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 7,792
  4. 2023DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervisioncited by 7,764
  5. 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,418
  6. 2023Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detectioncited by 3,274
  7. 2023Sigmoid Loss for Language Image Pre-Trainingcited by 3,048
  8. 2024SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videoscited by 2,784
  9. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,777
  10. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,297
  11. 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,653
  12. 2025SpatialVLA: Exploring Spatial Representations for Visual-Language-Action Modelcited by 502
32 more
  1. 2019Learning Discriminative Model Prediction for Trackingcited by 344
  2. 2024LongVU: Spatiotemporal Adaptive Compression for Long Video-Language Understandingcited by 341
  3. 2023EmbodiedGPT: Vision-Language Pre-Training via Embodied Chain of Thoughtcited by 276
  4. 2024NaVid: Video-based VLM Plans the Next Step for Vision-and-Language Navigationcited by 222
  5. 2023Habitat 3.0: A Co-Habitat for Humans, Avatars and Robotscited by 220
  6. 2024PaliGemma 2: A Family of Versatile VLMs for Transfercited by 204
  7. 2024NaVILA: Legged Robot Vision-Language-Action Model for Navigationcited by 201
  8. 2024Uni-NaVid: A Video-based Vision-Language-Action Model for Unifying Embodied Navigation Taskscited by 146
  9. 2025GraspVLA: a Grasping Foundation Model Pre-trained on Billion-scale Synthetic Action Datacited by 120
  10. 2025DexGraspVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Framework Towards General Dexterous Graspingcited by 87
  11. 2025Embodied Navigation Foundation Modelcited by 65
  12. 2024PoliFormer: Scaling On-Policy RL with Transformers Results in Masterful Navigatorscited by 55
  13. 2023Principles and Guidelines for Evaluating Social Robot Navigation Algorithmscited by 52
  14. 2023PLIP: Language-Image Pre-training for Person Representation Learningcited by 49
  15. 20223D-Aware Object Goal Navigation via Simultaneous Exploration and Identificationcited by 46
  16. 2025TrackVLA: Embodied Visual Tracking in the Wildcited by 46
  17. 2018End-to-end Active Object Tracking and Its Real-world Deployment via Reinforcement Learningcited by 35
  18. 2024CogNav: Cognitive Process Modeling for Object Goal Navigation with LLMscited by 32
  19. 2021Towards Distraction-Robust Active Visual Trackingcited by 30
  20. 2022Offline Reinforcement Learning for Visual Navigationcited by 28
  21. 2023Follow Anything: Open-set detection, tracking, and following in real-timecited by 28
  22. 2017End-to-end Active Object Tracking via Reinforcement Learningcited by 27
  23. 2024Empowering Embodied Visual Tracking with Visual Foundation Models and Offline RLcited by 21
  24. 2025Referring to Any Personcited by 20
  25. 2020Pose-Assisted Multi-Camera Collaboration for Active Object Trackingcited by 16
  26. 2023RSPT: Reconstruct Surroundings and Predict Trajectories for Generalizable Active Object Trackingcited by 16
  27. 2020Enhancing Continuous Control of Mobile Robots for End-to-End Visual Active Trackingcited by 11
  28. 2025LOVON: Legged Open-Vocabulary Object Navigatorcited by 11
  29. 2023Learning Vision-based Pursuit-Evasion Robot Policiescited by 9
  30. 2023Person Re-Identification for Robot Person Following with Online Continual Learningcited by 5
  31. 2024Following the Human Thread in Social Navigationcited by 4
  32. 2025RPF-Search: Field-based Search for Robot Person Following in Unknown Dynamic Environmentscited by 3

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 15.

16 papers.

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  1. 2026ABot-N0: Technical Report on the VLA Foundation Model for Versatile Embodied Navigationcited by 23
  2. 2026Graph-based Agent Memory: Taxonomy, Techniques, and Applicationscited by 22
  3. 2026VLingNav: Embodied Navigation with Adaptive Reasoning and Visual-Assisted Linguistic Memorycited by 10
  4. 2026Qwen-RobotNav Technical Report: A Scalable Navigation Model Designed for an Agentic Navigation Systemcited by 10
  5. 2026CoMaTrack: Competitive Multi-Agent Game-Theoretic Tracking with Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 5
  6. 2026ABot-N1: Toward a General Visual Language Navigation Foundation Modelcited by 5
  7. 2026NativeMEM: Native Memory Compression for Long-Horizon Robotic Manipulationcited by 4
  8. 2026Improving Robustness of Vision-Language-Action Models by Restoring Corrupted Visual Inputscited by 3
  9. 2025UtilGen: Utility-Centric Generative Data Augmentation with Dual-Level Task Adaptationcited by 2
  10. 2026USS: Unifying Spatial-Semantic Prompting for End to End Embodied Visual Trackingcited by 1
  11. 2026LightNav-0: Eliciting VLM Spatial Intelligence for Generalist Embodied Navigationcited by 1
  12. 2026G-DRAGON: Geospatial Reasoning and Dynamic Planning for Retrieval-Augmented Outdoor Navigationcited by 0
4 more
  1. 2026RescueBench: Can Embodied Agents Save Lives in the Wild ?cited by 0
  2. 2026CST-WM: A Causally Structured World Model for Embodied Visual Trackingcited by 0
  3. 2026UAVs Meet Embodied Intelligence: Bridging Human Intents and Flying Dynamics Via Harnessing Physical-Digital AI Agentscited by 0
  4. 2026UniTrackPLA: Unified Panorama-Language-Action Model for Instruction-Guided Navigation and Dynamic Person Trackingcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025VLM Can Be a Good Assistant: Enhancing Embodied Visual Tracking with Self-Improving Vision-Language Models
  2. 2026ReferTrack: Referring Then Tracking for Embodied Visual Tracking
  3. 2026Guide, Think, Act: Interactive Embodied Reasoning in Vision-Language-Action Models
  4. 2026UAV-Track VLA: Embodied Aerial Tracking via Vision-Language-Action Models
  5. 2025Hierarchical Instruction-aware Embodied Visual Tracking
  6. 2026VisualThink-VLA: Visual Intermediate Reasoning for Effective and Low-Latency Vision-Language-Action Policies
  7. 2026MotionVLA: Injecting Geometric Motion into Vision-Language-Action Model
  8. 2026EventVLA: Event-Driven Visual Evidence Memory for Long-Horizon Vision-Language-Action Policies