Pri4R: Learning World Dynamics for Vision-Language-Action Models with Privileged 4D Representation
On the map: Vision-language-action models → 3D and spatial-aware VLA
Abstract (arXiv)
Humans learn not only how their bodies move, but also how the surrounding world responds to their actions. In contrast, while recent Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models exhibit impressive semantic understanding, they often fail to capture the spatiotemporal dynamics governing physical interaction. In this paper, we introduce Pri4R, a simple yet effective approach that endows VLA models with an implicit understanding of world dynamics by leveraging privileged 4D information during training. Specifically, Pri4R augments VLAs with a lightweight point track head that predicts 3D point tracks. By injecting VLA features into this head to jointly predict future 3D trajectories, the model learns to incorporate evolving scene geometry within its shared representation space, enabling more physically aware context for precise control. Due to its architectural simplicity, Pri4R is compatible with dominant VLA design patterns with minimal changes. During inference, we run the model using the original VLA architecture unchanged; Pri4R adds no extra inputs, outputs, or computational overhead. Across simulation and real-world evaluations, Pri4R significantly improves performance on challenging manipulation tasks, including a +10% gain on LIBERO-Long and a +40% gain on RoboCasa. We further show that 3D point track prediction is an effective supervision target for learning action-world dynamics, and validate our design choices through extensive ablations. Project page: https://jiiiisoo.github.io/Pri4R/
Key facts. Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in 3D and spatial-aware VLA, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 56 of its 69 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 2 Mar 2026.
Builds on
56 of 69 references.
Closest ancestors · 7
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Spatial Forcing: Implicit Spatial Representation Alignment for Vision-language-action Model14 Oct
- 2025GeoVLA: Empowering 3D Representations in Vision-Language-Action Models12 Aug
- 2025BridgeVLA: Input-Output Alignment for Efficient 3D Manipulation Learning with Vision-Language Models9 Jun
- 20253D CAVLA: Leveraging Depth and 3D Context to Generalize Vision Language Action Models for Unseen Tasks9 May
- 2025PointVLA: Injecting the 3D World into Vision-Language-Action Models10 Mar
- 2024TraceVLA: Visual Trace Prompting Enhances Spatial-Temporal Awareness for Generalist Robotic Policies13 Dec
- 20243D-VLA: A 3D Vision-Language-Action Generative World Model14 Mar
Other references · 49
- 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
- 2023Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 7,792
- 2016PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentationcited by 5,223
- 2022Flamingo: a Visual Language Model for Few-Shot Learningcited by 4,337
- 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 2,993
- 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,777
- 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusioncited by 2,730
- 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,297
- 2022RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scalecited by 2,007
- 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,653
- 2024Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policycited by 1,427
- 2023LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learningcited by 1,338
37 more
- 2023Open X-Embodiment: Robotic Learning Datasets and RT-X Modelscited by 849
- 2025Fine-Tuning Vision-Language-Action Models: Optimizing Speed and Successcited by 844
- 2024DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Datasetcited by 801
- 2023BridgeData V2: A Dataset for Robot Learning at Scalecited by 634
- 2023Point Transformer V3: Simpler, Faster, Strongercited by 579
- 2023Learning Universal Policies via Text-Guided Video Generationcited by 506
- 2025CoT-VLA: Visual Chain-of-Thought Reasoning for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 440
- 2024CogACT: A Foundational Vision-Language-Action Model for Synergizing Cognition and Action in Robotic Manipulationcited by 411
- 2024RoboCasa: Large-Scale Simulation of Everyday Tasks for Generalist Robotscited by 391
- 2025AgiBot World Colosseo: A Large-scale Manipulation Platform for Scalable and Intelligent Embodied Systemscited by 390
- 2023An Embodied Generalist Agent in 3D Worldcited by 355
- 2023Unleashing Large-Scale Video Generative Pre-training for Visual Robot Manipulationcited by 353
- 2025WorldVLA: Towards Autoregressive Action World Modelcited by 351
- 2023Vision-Language Foundation Models as Effective Robot Imitatorscited by 344
- 2024Prismatic VLMs: Investigating the Design Space of Visually-Conditioned Language Modelscited by 336
- 2024TinyVLA: Towards Fast, Data-Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 331
- 2024Video Prediction Policy: A Generalist Robot Policy with Predictive Visual Representationscited by 279
- 2023PaLI-X: On Scaling up a Multilingual Vision and Language Modelcited by 254
- 2024RoboPoint: A Vision-Language Model for Spatial Affordance Prediction for Roboticscited by 242
- 2025Hi Robot: Open-Ended Instruction Following with Hierarchical Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 216
- 2023Any-point Trajectory Modeling for Policy Learningcited by 207
- 2025DreamVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model Dreamed with Comprehensive World Knowledgecited by 203
- 2025HybridVLA: Collaborative Diffusion and Autoregression in a Unified Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 176
- 2024Predictive Inverse Dynamics Models are Scalable Learners for Robotic Manipulationcited by 159
- 2024Gen2Act: Human Video Generation in Novel Scenarios enables Generalizable Robot Manipulationcited by 142
- 2024Flow as the Cross-Domain Manipulation Interfacecited by 126
- 2025ChatVLA: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Robot Control with Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 112
- 2023Compositional Foundation Models for Hierarchical Planningcited by 92
- 2025St4RTrack: Simultaneous 4D Reconstruction and Tracking in the Worldcited by 88
- 2025SpatialTrackerV2: 3D Point Tracking Made Easycited by 84
- 2026PointWorld: Scaling 3D World Models for In-The-Wild Robotic Manipulationcited by 74
- 2025VideoVLA: Video Generators Can Be Generalizable Robot Manipulatorscited by 61
- 2022ToolFlowNet: Robotic Manipulation with Tools via Predicting Tool Flow from Point Cloudscited by 54
- 2024Closed-Loop Visuomotor Control with Generative Expectation for Robotic Manipulationcited by 51
- 2024Diffusion Transformer Policycited by 41
- 2025Pre-training Auto-regressive Robotic Models with 4D Representationscited by 27
- 2025Object-centric 3D Motion Field for Robot Learning from Human Videoscited by 13
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 7.
7 papers.
- 2026TrackCraft3R: Repurposing Video Diffusion Transformers for Dense 3D Trackingcited by 3
- 2026μ0: A Scalable 3D Interaction-Trace World Modelcited by 2
- 2026ELAN4D: Embodiment-Centric 4D Supervision for Vision-Language-Action Models via Plug-and-Play Adaptationcited by 1
- 2026JEPA-x: Cross-Predictive Physics Grounding for Forecastable Latent Dynamicscited by 1
- 2026Grounding Spatial Relations in a Compact World Model: Instruction Leakage and a Goal-Free Dynamics Fixcited by 0
- 2026WorldToken: Time-First Sequence Modeling for Robotic Imitation Learningcited by 0
- 2026FOCAL-VLA: Subtask-Guided Geometry Distillation and Implicit World Modeling for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 0
- 2026FOCAL-VLA: Subtask-Guided Geometry Distillation and Implicit World Modeling for Vision-Language-Action Models18 Sep 2026
- 2026JEPA-x: Cross-Predictive Physics Grounding for Forecastable Latent Dynamics25 Aug 2026
- 2026WorldToken: Time-First Sequence Modeling for Robotic Imitation Learning23 Aug 2026
- 2026Grounding Spatial Relations in a Compact World Model: Instruction Leakage and a Goal-Free Dynamics Fix8 Jul 2026
- 2026μ0: A Scalable 3D Interaction-Trace World Model11 Jun 2026
- 2026ELAN4D: Embodiment-Centric 4D Supervision for Vision-Language-Action Models via Plug-and-Play Adaptation28 May 2026
- 2026TrackCraft3R: Repurposing Video Diffusion Transformers for Dense 3D Tracking12 May 2026
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- 2025Spatial-Aware VLA Pretraining through Visual-Physical Alignment from Human Videos
- 2026DynaWM: A Base-VLA-Guided World Foundation Model for Moving-Object Manipulation
- 2026ST-VLA: Enabling 4D-Aware Spatiotemporal Understanding for General Robot Manipulation
- 2026Explicit Kinematic Guidance from Analytic Concepts for Vision-Language-Action Models
- 2026PointACT: Vision-Language-Action Models with Multi-Scale Point-Action Interaction
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