mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

RoboSPA: Can VLA Models Go Beyond Simple Scenes and Short-Horizon Tasks?

arXiv 2609.05324 ↗First posted 4 Sep 2026cs.RO cs.AI cs.CVcited by 1

On the map: Vision-language-action models → Generalist VLA models and benchmarks

Abstract (arXiv)

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have shown promising progress in language-conditioned robotic manipulation. However, existing datasets and benchmarks mainly evaluate task completion under predefined settings, offering limited insight into model reasoning under increasing spatial and procedural complexity. We introduce RoboSPA (Robot Spatial-Procedural Assessment), a large-scale robotic manipulation dataset and benchmark for diagnosing embodied reasoning in VLA models. textttRoboSPA focuses on two core dimensions, Fine-Grained Spatial Reasoning and Long-Horizon Procedural Planning, covering 10 task categories and 56 base tasks. Each task is instantiated across five difficulty levels, yielding 280 variants with increasing spatial ambiguity and procedural complexity. We collect 527K trajectories across multiple embodiments and diverse scenes. Beyond binary success rate, textttRoboSPA introduces diagnostic metrics for more detailed evaluation. Experiments on representative VLA models show that current systems still struggle with complex spatial relations, precise low-level execution, and memory-intensive planning. These results establish textttRoboSPA as a challenging diagnostic benchmark for developing more capable, reliable, and generalizable embodied agents. Our data and code are available at https://github.com/fanzhenxuan/RoboSPA.

Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Generalist VLA models and benchmarks, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 39 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 4 Sep 2026.

Builds on

39 of 48 references.

Closest ancestors · 6

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025REALM: A Real-to-Sim Validated Benchmark for Generalization in Robotic Manipulation22 Dec
  2. 2025X-VLA: Soft-Prompted Transformer as Scalable Cross-Embodiment Vision-Language-Action Model11 Oct
  3. 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey18 Aug
  4. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Control31 Oct
  5. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model13 Jun
  6. 2024A Survey on Vision-Language-Action Models for Embodied AI23 May

Other references · 33

  1. 2024The Llama 3 Herd of Modelscited by 14,715
  2. 2023LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learningcited by 1,410
  3. 2025GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robotscited by 1,225
  4. 2023Open X-Embodiment: Robotic Learning Datasets and RT-X Modelscited by 862
  5. 2024RDT-1B: a Diffusion Foundation Model for Bimanual Manipulationcited by 691
  6. 2019RLBench: The Robot Learning Benchmark & Learning Environmentcited by 689
  7. 2023BridgeData V2: A Dataset for Robot Learning at Scalecited by 657
  8. 2020SAPIEN: A SimulAted Part-based Interactive ENvironmentcited by 595
  9. 2021CALVIN: A Benchmark for Language-Conditioned Policy Learning for Long-Horizon Robot Manipulation Taskscited by 584
  10. 2022BC-Z: Zero-Shot Task Generalization with Robotic Imitation Learningcited by 523
  11. 2025RoboTwin 2.0: A Scalable Data Generator and Benchmark with Strong Domain Randomization for Robust Bimanual Robotic Manipulationcited by 518
  12. 2024Evaluating Real-World Robot Manipulation Policies in Simulationcited by 495
21 more
  1. 2023ManiSkill2: A Unified Benchmark for Generalizable Manipulation Skillscited by 327
  2. 2025Motus: A Unified Latent Action World Modelcited by 251
  3. 2025DreamVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model Dreamed with Comprehensive World Knowledgecited by 213
  4. 2025MemoryVLA: Perceptual-Cognitive Memory in Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulationcited by 192
  5. 2024Aligning Cyber Space with Physical World: A Comprehensive Survey on Embodied AIcited by 179
  6. 2025LIBERO-PRO: Towards Robust and Fair Evaluation of Vision-Language-Action Models Beyond Memorizationcited by 179
  7. 2024VLABench: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Language-Conditioned Robotics Manipulation with Long-Horizon Reasoning Taskscited by 175
  8. 2024THE COLOSSEUM: A Benchmark for Evaluating Generalization for Robotic Manipulationcited by 133
  9. 2025A Survey on Vision-Language-Action Models: An Action Tokenization Perspectivecited by 96
  10. 2025InternVLA-M1: A Spatially Guided Vision-Language-Action Framework for Generalist Robot Policycited by 84
  11. 2024VideoRefer Suite: Advancing Spatial-Temporal Object Understanding with Video LLMcited by 72
  12. 2026RMBench: Memory-Dependent Robotic Manipulation Benchmark with Insights into Policy Designcited by 45
  13. 2024Towards Generalizable Vision-Language Robotic Manipulation: A Benchmark and LLM-guided 3D Policycited by 38
  14. 2025Memory, Benchmark & Robots: A Benchmark for Solving Complex Tasks with Reinforcement Learningcited by 36
  15. 2025EOC-Bench: Can MLLMs Identify, Recall, and Forecast Objects in an Egocentric World?cited by 21
  16. 2025Generative Artificial Intelligence in Robotic Manipulation: A Surveycited by 16
  17. 2025A Survey of Robotic Navigation and Manipulation with Physics Simulators in the Era of Embodied AIcited by 16
  18. 2026CtrlCoT: Dual-Granularity Chain-of-Thought Compression for Controllable Reasoningcited by 7
  19. 2026MAU-GPT: Enhancing Multi-type Industrial Anomaly Understanding via Anomaly-aware and Generalist Experts Adaptationcited by 6
  20. 2026VisualThink-VLA: Visual Intermediate Reasoning for Effective and Low-Latency Vision-Language-Action Policiescited by 4
  21. 2026Draft-Thinking: Learning Efficient Reasoning in Long Chain-of-Thought LLMscited by 3

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Citing papers per year: 2026: 1.

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  1. 2024Benchmarking Vision, Language, & Action Models on Robotic Learning Tasks
  2. 2025Vision Language Action Models in Robotic Manipulation: A Systematic Review
  3. 2025Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Embodied Manipulation: A Systematic Survey
  4. 2026RoboInter: A Holistic Intermediate Representation Suite Towards Robotic Manipulation
  5. 2024VLATest: Testing and Evaluating Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation
  6. 2026Vision-Language-Action in Robotics: A Survey of Datasets, Benchmarks, and Data Engines
  7. 2024RoboMamba: Efficient Vision-Language-Action Model for Robotic Reasoning and Manipulation
  8. 2025Experiences from Benchmarking Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation