mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Vesta: A Generalist Embodied Reasoning Model

arXiv 2606.20905 ↗First posted 18 Jun 2026cs.RO cs.AIcited by 5

On the map: LLM reasoning → Spatial and embodied reasoning

Abstract (arXiv)

Robots operating in open-world environments must seamlessly integrate localization, spatial reasoning, navigation, and long-horizon planning. While specialist models excel at individual tasks, deploying a multi-model stack is computationally expensive and prone to cascading errors. We present Vesta, a unified embodied generalist that consolidates these capabilities into a single foundation model. Our approach combines a diverse and massive curated corpus designed to induce spatial grounding and a simple multimodal memory harness that enables reasoning over extended time horizons. Across diverse benchmarks, Vesta on average beats individual SOTA baselines by >20% and beats an ensemble of per-category-best baselines by >10% -- thus demonstrating that a generalist model can match or exceed specialists. On real-world robotic tasks requiring memory and reasoning, Vesta improves task success by >35%. Our work thus demonstrates that a single generalist is a feasible, scalable, and arguably preferable alternative to combining specialists.

Key facts. Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 76 of its 163 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Jun 2026.

Builds on

76 of 163 references.

Closest ancestors · 14

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026From Correspondence to Actions: Human-Like Multi-Image Spatial Reasoning in Multi-modal Large Language Models9 Feb
  2. 2026RoboBrain 2.5: Depth in Sight, Time in Mind20 Jan
  3. 2025Towards Spatial Trace with Reasoning in Vision-Language Models for Robotics15 Dec
  4. 2025Vision-Language Memory for Spatial Reasoning25 Nov
  5. 2025Spatial Reasoning with Vision-Language Models in Ego-Centric Multi-View Scenes8 Sep
  6. 2025MolmoAct: Action Reasoning Models that can Reason in Space11 Aug
  7. 2025Fast ECoT: Efficient Embodied Chain-of-Thought via Thoughts Reuse9 Jun
  8. 2025Fast-in-Slow: A Dual-System Foundation Model Unifying Fast Manipulation within Slow Reasoning2 Jun
  9. 2025MMSI-Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Image Spatial Intelligence29 May
  10. 2025Robo2VLM: Visual Question Answering from Large-Scale In-the-Wild Robot Manipulation Datasets21 May
  11. 2025LEGO-Puzzles: How Good Are MLLMs at Multi-Step Spatial Reasoning?25 Mar
  12. 2024Robotic Control via Embodied Chain-of-Thought Reasoning11 Jul
2 more
  1. 2024Commonsense Reasoning for Legged Robot Adaptation with Vision-Language Models2 Jul
  2. 2022Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Models12 Jul

Other references · 62

  1. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,887
  2. 2025Qwen3-VL Technical Reportcited by 2,793
  3. 2023PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Modelcited by 2,071
  4. 2025Gemma 3 Technical Reportcited by 1,824
  5. 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,761
  6. 2023Learning Fine-Grained Bimanual Manipulation with Low-Cost Hardwarecited by 1,568
  7. 2017Matterport3D: Learning from RGB-D Data in Indoor Environmentscited by 1,376
  8. 2025GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robotscited by 1,225
  9. 2024DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Datasetcited by 852
  10. 2025Qwen2.5-Omni Technical Reportcited by 736
  11. 2021Habitat-Matterport 3D Dataset (HM3D): 1000 Large-scale 3D Environments for Embodied AIcited by 592
  12. 2026World Action Models are Zero-shot Policiescited by 465
38 more
  1. 2025AgiBot World Colosseo: A Large-scale Manipulation Platform for Scalable and Intelligent Embodied Systemscited by 405
  2. 2024TinyVLA: Towards Fast, Data-Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 339
  3. 2024TraceVLA: Visual Trace Prompting Enhances Spatial-Temporal Awareness for Generalist Robotic Policiescited by 304
  4. 2024A Survey on Vision-Language-Action Models for Embodied AIcited by 279
  5. 2024RoboPoint: A Vision-Language Model for Spatial Affordance Prediction for Roboticscited by 251
  6. 2026Qwen3-VL-Embedding and Qwen3-VL-Reranker: A Unified Framework for State-of-the-Art Multimodal Retrieval and Rankingcited by 230
  7. 2025DreamVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model Dreamed with Comprehensive World Knowledgecited by 213
  8. 2024NaVILA: Legged Robot Vision-Language-Action Model for Navigationcited by 211
  9. 2024Uni-NaVid: A Video-based Vision-Language-Action Model for Unifying Embodied Navigation Taskscited by 156
  10. 2023Q-Transformer: Scalable Offline Reinforcement Learning via Autoregressive Q-Functionscited by 131
  11. 2025HAMSTER: Hierarchical Action Models For Open-World Robot Manipulationcited by 130
  12. 2024SAT: Dynamic Spatial Aptitude Training for Multimodal Language Modelscited by 114
  13. 2026A Pragmatic VLA Foundation Modelcited by 103
  14. 2025MindCube: Spatial Mental Modeling from Limited Viewscited by 95
  15. 2024One-Step Diffusion Policy: Fast Visuomotor Policies via Diffusion Distillationcited by 89
  16. 2025RoboBrain 2.0 Technical Reportcited by 89
  17. 2025Visual Spatial Tuningcited by 89
  18. 2025M-LLM Based Video Frame Selection for Efficient Video Understandingcited by 88
  19. 2025Gemini Robotics 1.5: Pushing the Frontier of Generalist Robots with Advanced Embodied Reasoning, Thinking, and Motion Transfercited by 87
  20. 2025Gemini Robotics: Bringing AI into the Physical Worldcited by 83
  21. 2025Vision-Language-Action (VLA) Models: Concepts, Progress, Applications and Challengescited by 74
  22. 2024Mobility VLA: Multimodal Instruction Navigation with Long-Context VLMs and Topological Graphscited by 73
  23. 2025Embodied Navigation Foundation Modelcited by 72
  24. 2026MEM: Multi-Scale Embodied Memory for Vision Language Action Modelscited by 61
  25. 2026Robometer: Scaling General-Purpose Robotic Reward Models via Trajectory Comparisonscited by 60
  26. 2024From Multimodal LLMs to Generalist Embodied Agents: Methods and Lessonscited by 42
  27. 2025RoboFAC: A Comprehensive Framework for Robotic Failure Analysis and Correctioncited by 41
  28. 2025MLLMs are Deeply Affected by Modality Biascited by 40
  29. 2025Robotic Manipulation by Imitating Generated Videos Without Physical Demonstrationscited by 38
  30. 2025BFM-Zero: A Promptable Behavioral Foundation Model for Humanoid Control Using Unsupervised Reinforcement Learningcited by 38
  31. 2025MiMo-Embodied: X-Embodied Foundation Model Technical Reportcited by 38
  32. 2024From LLMs to Actions: Latent Codes as Bridges in Hierarchical Robot Controlcited by 35
  33. 2026RynnBrain: Open Embodied Foundation Modelscited by 35
  34. 2025PAI-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark For Physical AIcited by 34
  35. 2025SATBench: Benchmarking LLMs' Logical Reasoning via Automated Puzzle Generation from SAT Formulascited by 33
  36. 2025PointArena: Probing Multimodal Grounding Through Language-Guided Pointingcited by 31
  37. 2025RLRC: Reinforcement Learning-based Recovery for Compressed Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 23
  38. 2025Robot Learning from a Physical World Modelcited by 20

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 5.

5 papers.

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  1. 2023An Embodied Generalist Agent in 3D World
  2. 2026Are Frontier VLM Agents Ready to Be Robot Generalists? An Empirical Study with the Embodied Agent Arena
  3. 2025Embodied Spatial Intelligence: from Implicit Scene Modeling to Spatial Reasoning
  4. 2025RoboMemory: A Brain-inspired Multi-memory Agentic Framework for Interactive Environmental Learning in Physical Embodied Systems
  5. 2024TANGO: Training-free Embodied AI Agents for Open-world Tasks
  6. 2025Embodied-R1: Reinforced Embodied Reasoning for General Robotic Manipulation
  7. 2026RoBoSR: Structured Scene Representations for Embodied Robotic Reasoning ↗
  8. 2025Robot-R1: Reinforcement Learning for Enhanced Embodied Reasoning in Robotics