mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

CLOSER-VLN: Closed-Loop Self-Verified Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning for Aerial Vision-Language Navigation

arXiv 2606.28397 ↗First posted 24 Jun 2026cs.CV cs.AIcited by 2

On the map: Retrieval-augmented generation → Multimodal RAG

Abstract (arXiv)

Vision-language navigation (VLN) has recently advanced with large language and multimodal models, enabling agents to follow natural-language instructions in unseen environments without training a task-specific navigation policy. However, most existing VLN methods relying on large models still adopt an open-loop decision-execution approach, where candidate actions are generated from instructions and observations but are rarely verified or corrected before execution. This causes critical issues in aerial VLN, where minor errors in intermediate actions may quickly accumulate into large trajectory deviations and lead to target loss. To address this issue, we propose Closed-loop Self-verified Retrieval-augmented Reasoning (CLOSER), a training-policy-free method that sequentially performs action reasoning, reliability verification, targeted retrieval, and action correction in a closed-loop manner before executing concrete actions. We instantiate the CLOSER in aerial VLN tasks and develop a CLOSER-VLN framework, which is composed of three components: a hierarchical reasoner for generating candidate actions based on available information, a multidimensional action verifier for assessing the reliability of actions generated by the reasoner, and a verification-triggered multimodal retriever for retrieving targeted exemplars from a memory bank only when verification fails. We conduct experimental evaluations on the CityNav benchmark, where CLOSER-VLN achieves 32.01% SR and 21.28% SPL on the test-unseen split, confirming the effectiveness of closed-loop reasoning.

Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal RAG, one of 15 directions in Retrieval-augmented generation. Builds on 41 of its 47 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 24 Jun 2026.

Builds on

41 of 47 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026RAGNav: A Retrieval-Augmented Topological Reasoning Framework for Multi-Goal Visual-Language Navigation4 Mar
  2. 2025RANa: Retrieval-Augmented Navigation4 Apr

Other references · 39

  1. 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
  2. 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 8,851
  3. 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,393
  4. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  5. 2025Qwen3 Technical Reportcited by 8,195
  6. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,601
  7. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
  8. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,317
  9. 2023Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Modelscited by 3,155
  10. 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 2,993
  11. 2022Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordancescited by 2,302
  12. 2021Improving language models by retrieving from trillions of tokenscited by 1,278
27 more
  1. 2022Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Modelscited by 1,057
  2. 2023CRITIC: Large Language Models Can Self-Correct with Tool-Interactive Critiquingcited by 751
  3. 2020Object Goal Navigation using Goal-Oriented Semantic Explorationcited by 421
  4. 2023Chain-of-Verification Reduces Hallucination in Large Language Modelscited by 317
  5. 2023NavGPT: Explicit Reasoning in Vision-and-Language Navigation with Large Language Modelscited by 274
  6. 2023ETPNav: Evolving Topological Planning for Vision-Language Navigation in Continuous Environmentscited by 165
  7. 2023AerialVLN: Vision-and-Language Navigation for UAVscited by 117
  8. 2025Reason-RFT: Reinforcement Fine-Tuning for Visual Reasoning of Vision Language Modelscited by 92
  9. 2024MapGPT: Map-Guided Prompting with Adaptive Path Planning for Vision-and-Language Navigationcited by 85
  10. 2024NavCoT: Boosting LLM-Based Vision-and-Language Navigation via Learning Disentangled Reasoningcited by 77
  11. 2024Open-Nav: Exploring Zero-Shot Vision-and-Language Navigation in Continuous Environment with Open-Source LLMscited by 60
  12. 2024Constraint-Aware Zero-Shot Vision-Language Navigation in Continuous Environmentscited by 49
  13. 2024Embodied-RAG: General Non-parametric Embodied Memory for Retrieval and Generationcited by 44
  14. 2024CityNav: A Large-Scale Dataset for Real-World Aerial Navigationcited by 40
  15. 2024ImagineNav: Prompting Vision-Language Models as Embodied Navigator through Scene Imaginationcited by 38
  16. 2025CityNavAgent: Aerial Vision-and-Language Navigation with Hierarchical Semantic Planning and Global Memorycited by 30
  17. 2025FlightGPT: Towards Generalizable and Interpretable UAV Vision-and-Language Navigation with Vision-Language Modelscited by 22
  18. 2024Augmenting Multimodal LLMs with Self-Reflective Tokens for Knowledge-based Visual Question Answeringcited by 20
  19. 2024Exploring Spatial Representation to Enhance LLM Reasoning in Aerial Vision-Language Navigationcited by 18
  20. 2024Correctable Landmark Discovery via Large Models for Vision-Language Navigationcited by 16
  21. 2025GeoNav: Empowering MLLMs with dual-scale geospatial reasoning for language-goal aerial navigationcited by 16
  22. 2025SE-VLN: A Self-Evolving Vision-Language Navigation Framework Based on Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 9
  23. 2025Exploratory Retrieval-Augmented Planning For Continual Embodied Instruction Followingcited by 7
  24. 2025EvolveNav: Empowering LLM-Based Vision-Language Navigation via Self-Improving Embodied Reasoningcited by 4
  25. 2025Dream to Recall: Imagination-Guided Experience Retrieval for Memory-Persistent Vision-and-Language Navigationcited by 3
  26. 2026ViSA-Enhanced Aerial VLN: A Visual-Spatial Reasoning Enhanced Framework for Aerial Vision-Language Navigationcited by 2
  27. 2026CMMR-VLN: Vision-and-Language Navigation via Continual Multimodal Memory Retrievalcited by 1

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

  1. 2026Air-Ground Collaborative Vision-and-Language Navigation via Shared Bird's-Eye Mapscited by 1
  2. 2026Structured World-State Reasoning for Agentic Robotic Searchcited by 0

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  2. 2025UAV-VLN: End-to-End Vision Language guided Navigation for UAVs
  3. 2026Vision-Language Navigation for Aerial Robots: Towards the Era of Large Language Models
  4. 2026Parse, Search, and Confirmation: Training-Free Aerial Vision-and-Dialog Navigation with Chain-of-Thought Reasoning and Structured Spatial Memory
  5. 2026AwareVLN: Reasoning with Self-awareness for Vision-Language Navigation
  6. 2026AirHunt: Bridging VLM Semantics and Continuous Planning for Efficient Aerial Object Navigation
  7. 2026ReflectVLN: Training Vision-Language Navigation Agents with Reflective Reasoning
  8. 2026Fly0: Persistent Metric Anchoring for Zero-Shot Aerial Vision-Language Navigation