mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Unified 4D World Action Modeling from Video Priors with Asynchronous Denoising

arXiv 2604.26694 ↗First posted 29 Apr 2026cs.RO cs.AI cs.CVcited by 65

On the map: World models → Embodied and robot world models

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Abstract (arXiv)

We propose X-WAM, a Unified 4D World Model that unifies real-time robotic action execution and high-fidelity 4D world synthesis (video + 3D reconstruction) in a single framework, addressing the critical limitations of prior unified world models (e.g., UWM) that only model 2D pixel-space and fail to balance action efficiency and world modeling quality. To leverage the strong visual priors of pretrained video diffusion models, X-WAM imagines the future world by predicting multi-view RGB-D videos, and obtains spatial information efficiently through a lightweight structural adaptation: replicating the final few blocks of the pretrained Diffusion Transformer into a dedicated depth prediction branch for the reconstruction of future spatial information. Moreover, we propose Asynchronous Noise Sampling (ANS) to jointly optimize generation quality and action decoding efficiency. ANS applies a specialized asynchronous denoising schedule during inference, which rapidly decodes actions with fewer steps to enable efficient real-time execution, while dedicating the full sequence of steps to generate high-fidelity video. Rather than entirely decoupling the timesteps during training, ANS samples from their joint distribution to align with the inference distribution. Pretrained on over 5,800 hours of robotic data, X-WAM achieves 79.2% and 90.7% average success rate on RoboCasa and RoboTwin 2.0 benchmarks, while producing high-fidelity 4D reconstruction and generation surpassing existing methods in both visual and geometric metrics.

Key facts. Cited by 65 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Embodied and robot world models, one of 11 directions in World models. Builds on 73 of its 77 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Apr 2026.

Builds on

73 of 77 references.

Closest ancestors · 22

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Do World Action Models Generalize Better than VLAs? A Robustness Study23 Mar
  2. 2026GigaWorld-Policy: An Efficient Action-Centered World--Action Model18 Mar
  3. 2026Fast-WAM: Do World Action Models Need Test-time Future Imagination?17 Mar
  4. 2026World Action Models are Zero-shot Policies17 Feb
  5. 2026Scaling World Model for Hierarchical Manipulation Policies11 Feb
  6. 2026VLA-JEPA: Enhancing Vision-Language-Action Model with Latent World Model10 Feb
  7. 2026MVISTA-4D: View-Consistent 4D World Model with Test-Time Action Inference for Robotic Manipulation10 Feb
  8. 2026Causal World Modeling for Robot Control29 Jan
  9. 2026PointWorld: Scaling 3D World Models for In-The-Wild Robotic Manipulation7 Jan
  10. 2025Motus: A Unified Latent Action World Model15 Dec
  11. 2025GigaWorld-0: World Models as Data Engine to Empower Embodied AI25 Nov
  12. 2025WristWorld: Generating Wrist-Views via 4D World Models for Robotic Manipulation8 Oct
10 more
  1. 2025GWM: Towards Scalable Gaussian World Models for Robotic Manipulation25 Aug
  2. 2025Geometry-aware 4D Video Generation for Robot Manipulation1 Jul
  3. 2025WorldVLA: Towards Autoregressive Action World Model26 Jun
  4. 2025FlowDreamer: A RGB-D World Model with Flow-based Motion Representations for Robot Manipulation15 May
  5. 2025TesserAct: Learning 4D Embodied World Models29 Apr
  6. 2025Unified World Models: Coupling Video and Action Diffusion for Pretraining on Large Robotic Datasets3 Apr
  7. 2025EnerVerse: Envisioning Embodied Future Space for Robotics Manipulation3 Jan
  8. 2024IRASim: A Fine-Grained World Model for Robot Manipulation20 Jun
  9. 20243D-VLA: A 3D Vision-Language-Action Generative World Model14 Mar
  10. 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion7 Mar

Other references · 51

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
  2. 20233D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Renderingcited by 6,141
  3. 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 5,931
  4. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
  5. 2021RoFormer: Enhanced Transformer with Rotary Position Embeddingcited by 4,581
  6. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Modelscited by 2,994
  7. 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 2,993
  8. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,777
  9. 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Modelscited by 2,536
  10. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,297
  11. 2023DUSt3R: Geometric 3D Vision Made Easycited by 1,526
  12. 2025VGGT: Visual Geometry Grounded Transformercited by 1,475
38 more
  1. 2024Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policycited by 1,427
  2. 2025GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robotscited by 1,167
  3. 2025Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AIcited by 833
  4. 2024DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Datasetcited by 801
  5. 2024Genie: Generative Interactive Environmentscited by 706
  6. 2024RDT-1B: a Diffusion Foundation Model for Bimanual Manipulationcited by 670
  7. 2025Depth Anything 3: Recovering the Visual Space from Any Viewscited by 626
  8. 2023Learning Universal Policies via Text-Guided Video Generationcited by 506
  9. 2025SpatialVLA: Exploring Spatial Representations for Visual-Language-Action Modelcited by 502
  10. 2025RoboTwin 2.0: A Scalable Data Generator and Benchmark with Strong Domain Randomization for Robust Bimanual Robotic Manipulationcited by 477
  11. 2023UniPC: A Unified Predictor-Corrector Framework for Fast Sampling of Diffusion Modelscited by 441
  12. 2024RoboCasa: Large-Scale Simulation of Everyday Tasks for Generalist Robotscited by 391
  13. 2025AgiBot World Colosseo: A Large-scale Manipulation Platform for Scalable and Intelligent Embodied Systemscited by 390
  14. 2023Unleashing Large-Scale Video Generative Pre-training for Visual Robot Manipulationcited by 353
  15. 2023Vision-Language Foundation Models as Effective Robot Imitatorscited by 344
  16. 2023MimicGen: A Data Generation System for Scalable Robot Learning using Human Demonstrationscited by 308
  17. 2024Video Prediction Policy: A Generalist Robot Policy with Predictive Visual Representationscited by 279
  18. 2026Cosmos Policy: Fine-Tuning Video Models for Visuomotor Control and Planningcited by 274
  19. 2025DreamVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model Dreamed with Comprehensive World Knowledgecited by 203
  20. 2025Video Depth Anything: Consistent Depth Estimation for Super-Long Videoscited by 202
  21. 2025Real-Time Execution of Action Chunking Flow Policiescited by 199
  22. 2025mimic-video: Video-Action Models for Generalizable Robot Control Beyond VLAscited by 133
  23. 2025Genie Envisioner: A Unified World Foundation Platform for Robotic Manipulationcited by 129
  24. 2025Unified Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 128
  25. 2026π0.7: a Steerable Generalist Robotic Foundation Model with Emergent Capabilitiescited by 127
  26. 2025Spatial Forcing: Implicit Spatial Representation Alignment for Vision-language-action Modelcited by 125
  27. 2025Emu3.5: Native Multimodal Models are World Learnerscited by 119
  28. 2024ManiGaussian: Dynamic Gaussian Splatting for Multi-task Robotic Manipulationcited by 106
  29. 2025PointVLA: Injecting the 3D World into Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 101
  30. 2025BridgeVLA: Input-Output Alignment for Efficient 3D Manipulation Learning with Vision-Language Modelscited by 77
  31. 2026DiT4DiT: Jointly Modeling Video Dynamics and Actions for Generalizable Robot Controlcited by 71
  32. 2025GeoVLA: Empowering 3D Representations in Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 68
  33. 2025VideoVLA: Video Generators Can Be Generalizable Robot Manipulatorscited by 61
  34. 2025Evo-0: Vision-Language-Action Model with Implicit Spatial Understandingcited by 55
  35. 2025InternData-A1: Pioneering High-Fidelity Synthetic Data for Pre-training Generalist Policycited by 46
  36. 2026Xiaomi-Robotics-0: An Open-Sourced Vision-Language-Action Model with Real-Time Executioncited by 42
  37. 2025From Spatial to Actions: Grounding Vision-Language-Action Model in Spatial Foundation Priorscited by 25
  38. 2026BagelVLA: Enhancing Long-Horizon Manipulation via Interleaved Vision-Language-Action Generationcited by 25

50 most cited of 51 All 51 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 65.

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  1. 2026World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AIcited by 46
  2. 2026RoboDojo: A Unified Sim-and-Real Benchmark for Comprehensive Evaluation of Generalist Robot Manipulation Policiescited by 35
  3. 2026Xiaomi-Robotics-1: Scaling Vision-Language-Action Models with over 100K Hours of Real-World Trajectoriescited by 24
  4. 2026Efficient-WAM: A 1B-Parameter World-Action Model with Low-Cost Future Imaginationcited by 17
  5. 2026Learning 4D Geometric Priors for Inference-Efficient World Action Modelscited by 14
  6. 2026WAM4D: Fast 4D World Action Model via Spatial Register Tokenscited by 12
  7. 2026MemoryWAM: Efficient World Action Modeling with Persistent Memorycited by 12
  8. 2026World Action Models: A Surveycited by 10
  9. 2026FlowWAM: Optical Flow as a Unified Action Representation for World Action Modelscited by 10
  10. 2026Tactile-WAM: Touch-Aware World Action Model with Tactile Asymmetric Attentioncited by 9
  11. 20264D-WAM: Infusing Spatiotemporal Awareness into World Action Models through Trajectory Fieldscited by 9
  12. 2026GeoSem-WAM: Geometry- and Semantic-Aware World Action Modelscited by 8
38 more
  1. 2026Kairos: A Regret-Aware Native World-Action Model Stack for Physical AIcited by 8
  2. 2026DSWAM: A Dual-System World Action Foundation Model for Fine-Grained Robot Manipulationcited by 8
  3. 2026Point Tracking Improves World Action Modelscited by 7
  4. 2026SANTS: A State-Adaptive Scheduler for World Action Modelscited by 7
  5. 2026Directing the World: Fast Autoregressive Video Generation with Compositional Human-Camera Controlcited by 6
  6. 2026WAM-TTT: Steering World-Action Models by Watching Human Play at Test Timecited by 6
  7. 2026Test-Time Scaling for World Action Models via Zero-Shot Geometric Evaluationcited by 6
  8. 2026DreamWAM: Beyond RGB Future Prediction for World Action Modelscited by 6
  9. 2026ACE-Brain-0.5: A Unified Embodied Foundational Model for Physical Agentic AIcited by 5
  10. 2026Beyond Data Scaling: Representation-Centric Continued Pre-training for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 5
  11. 2026WorldScape Policy 2.0: Empowering Steerable World Action Modeling with Reasoning-Augmented Memory and In-Context Learningcited by 4
  12. 2026SG-WAM: Self-Guided World Modeling in Geometry-Aware Policy Spacecited by 3
  13. 2026DreamX-Phi 1.0: Action-Conditioned Video World Model for Robotic Manipulationcited by 3
  14. 2026DECOWAM: Decoupled Whole-Body World-Action Model for Legged Mobile Manipulationcited by 3
  15. 2026World Pilot: Steering Vision-Language-Action Models with World-Action Priorscited by 2
  16. 2026Z-1: Efficient Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 2
  17. 2026UniNav: A Unified World-Action Diffusion Model for Visual Navigationcited by 2
  18. 2026PRM-as-a-Judge 1.5: A Toolkit for Robot Process Assessmentcited by 2
  19. 2026LD4WAM: Learning Latent Dynamics from Human Videos for World Action Modelscited by 2
  20. 2026XPACE: Joint World and Action Modeling from Heterogeneous Experiencecited by 1
  21. 2026AffordanceWAM: Affordance-Aware Joint World-Action Modeling for Robot Manipulationcited by 1
  22. 2026MachEmbodied-U0: Unified Understanding and Generation Model for Embodied Intelligencecited by 1
  23. 2026InternW0-Δ: A World Action Model Bridging Predictive Dynamics and Actions with 20K+ Hours of Open Datacited by 1
  24. 2026Breaking Structural Isolation: Scalable Graph Clustering via Community-Aware Sampling and Structural Entropycited by 0
  25. 2026Hierarchical Denoising For Multi-Step Visual Reasoningcited by 0
  26. 2026CoWAM: Coordination Contracts for Selective Policy Intervention with WAMscited by 0
  27. 2026WorldToken: Time-First Sequence Modeling for Robotic Imitation Learningcited by 0
  28. 2026Learning to Use Imagination: Progress-Conditioned Future Utilization for World Action Modelscited by 0
  29. 2026Acting in Meters: Learning Metric Interactions for Precise Robotic Manipulationcited by 0
  30. 2026MT-WAM: Reorienting the One-Pass Predictive Representation Toward Action Generationcited by 0
  31. 2026Skel-WAM: A Hand-Skeleton-Conditioned World Action Model for Human-to-Robot Manipulation Transfercited by 0
  32. 2026Grounded Action Model: 3D Grounding as a Foundation for Roboticscited by 0
  33. 2026What Matters in Designing World Action Models: An Empirical Studycited by 0
  34. 2026DualWAM: Dual-System World Action Models for Asynchronous Global Planning and Local Refinementcited by 0
  35. 2026An Action Is Worth One Patch: Unified World-Action Modeling with PatchWAMcited by 0
  36. 2026InternW0: A Foundational Physical World Model for Efficient Real-World Interactionscited by 0
  37. 2026Streaming-WAM: Action-Conditioned World-Action Model for Asynchronous Robot Manipulationcited by 0
  38. 2026Devol-ONE: One Autoregressive Mixture of Transformers to Unify Vision-Language-Action and Latent World Modelingcited by 0

50 most cited of 65 All 65 (JSON)

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  1. 2026Sparse-WAM: Accelerating World Action Models via Action-Guided Sparse Imagination
  2. 2026AHA-WAM:Asynchronous Horizon-Adaptive World-Action Modeling with Observation-Guided Context Routing
  3. 2026C3ache: Accelerating World Action Models with Cross Inference Chunk Cache
  4. 2026Foresight Without Seeing: Latent Futures for World Action Models
  5. 2026Spatially Aware World Action Model via Geometric Latent Diffusion
  6. 2026Rolling-WAM: World Action Models with Rolling Imagination
  7. 2026World Action Modeling with Progressive Visual Planning
  8. 2025Astra: General Interactive World Model with Autoregressive Denoising