# World models for navigation

Area: [World models](https://mlsanity.com/wm/index.md). HTML: https://mlsanity.com/wm/world-models-for-navigation/

## Key facts

- World models for navigation: 139 papers on arXiv since 2015 (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- 35 of its 139 mapped papers (25%) cite “Navigation World Models” (2024, arXiv 2412.03572).
- 20 of its 139 mapped papers (14%) cite “Pathdreamer: A World Model for Indoor Navigation” (2021, arXiv 2105.08756).
- 21 new papers 17 Sep–14 Oct.

## Most cited here

- [Navigation World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03572/) (2024), cited by 35 papers here
- [Pathdreamer: A World Model for Indoor Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.08756/) (2021), cited by 20 papers here
- [Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01201/) (2019), cited by 19 papers here
- [NavMorph: A Self-Evolving World Model for Vision-and-Language Navigation in Continuous Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23468/) (2025), cited by 13 papers here
- [A Comprehensive Survey on World Models for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16732/) (2025), cited by 8 papers here
- [WMNav: Integrating Vision-Language Models into World Models for Object Goal Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02247/) (2025), cited by 7 papers here
- [X-MOBILITY: End-To-End Generalizable Navigation via World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.17491/) (2024), cited by 6 papers here
- [WorldArena: A Unified Benchmark for Evaluating Perception and Functional Utility of Embodied World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.08971/) (2026), cited by 6 papers here
- [DREAMWALKER: Mental Planning for Continuous Vision-Language Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07498/) (2023), cited by 5 papers here
- [Aerial World Model for Long-horizon Visual Generation and Navigation in 3D Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.21887/) (2025), cited by 5 papers here

## New (17 Sep–14 Oct)

- [Towards Agentic Robots: Model, Data, Environment, and Harness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20442/) (2026-10-14)
- [What Matters for World Modeling in Vision-Language-Action Models?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19825/) (2026-10-14)
- [SkipWorld: Latent Skip Planning with Distilled World Models for Efficient Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.18135/) (2026-10-13)
- [G2WAM: World Action Models for Efficient and Geometry Grounded Image-Goal Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16558/) (2026-10-12)
- [LiteNWM: Efficient Latent World Models for Onboard Visual Navigation in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12368/) (2026-10-08)
- [Acting from Belief, Looking When Needed: A Bayesian Spatial World Model for Navigation under Intermittent Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.11591/) (2026-10-08)
- [SearchWorld: Spatial Value-Grounded Imagination for UAV Object Search via World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.09335/) (2026-10-07)
- [How Much Planning Is Enough? Reducing Search and Computation in World-Model Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.08350/) (2026-10-06)
- [EVEWorld: Physical Evolution Supervision for Embodied World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.03374/) (2026-10-02)
- [Social-WM: Safety-Aware Latent World Models for Robot Social Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.40177/) (2026-10-01)
- [DiffWAM: A Fast and Efficient Navigation World Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39763/) (2026-09-30)
- [DSWM: Decomposed Spatio-Temporal World Model for Demand-Driven UAV Base Station Repositioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.36845/) (2026-09-29)
- [AquaWAM: A Dynamics-aware World Action Model for Underwater Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33299/) (2026-09-29)
- [ForeFly: A Dual-Horizon World Action Model for Aerial Vision-Language Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33581/) (2026-09-27)
- [DroneWAM: Efficient World Action Model for Drone Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33148/) (2026-09-27)
- [World SLAM Model: Joint World Modeling for SLAM and Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.32626/) (2026-09-26)
- [Aim Short to Reach Far: Your Frozen World Model Can Plan Better Than You Think](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.30036/) (2026-09-24)
- [Skytopia: Monocular Drone Navigation with Action-Conditioned Latent World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26007/) (2026-09-22)
- [WOLF: World Model Guided LiDAR Exploration with Predictive Frontiers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.23656/) (2026-09-20)
- [Verti-WM: A Physics-Aided Exteroceptive World Model for Off-Road Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.23118/) (2026-09-19)
- [Feeling Terrain Before Crossing: World Models for Off-Road Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19863/) (2026-09-17)