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arXiv · 2504.08806

Endowing Embodied Agents with Spatial Reasoning Capabilities for Vision-and-Language Navigation

Qianqian Bai·Zhongpu Chen·Ling Luo·Huaming Du·Yuqian Lei·Ziyun Jiao
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Abstract

Enhancing the spatial perception capabilities of mobile robots is crucial for achieving embodied Vision-and-Language Navigation (VLN). Although significant progress has been made in simulated environments, directly transferring these capabilities to real-world scenarios often results in severe hallucination phenomena, causing robots to lose effective spatial awareness. To address this issue, we propose BrainNav, a bio-inspired spatial cognitive navigation framework inspired by biological spatial cognition theories and cognitive map theory. BrainNav integrates dual-map (coordinate map and topological map) and dual-orientation (relative orientation and absolute orientation) strategies, enabling real-time navigation through dynamic scene capture and path planning. Its five core modules-Hippocampal Memory Hub, Visual Cortex Perception Engine, Parietal Spatial Constructor, Prefrontal Decision Center, and Cerebellar Motion Execution Unit-mimic biological cognitive functions to reduce spatial hallucinations and enhance adaptability. Validated in a zero-shot real-world lab environment using the Limo Pro robot, BrainNav, compatible with GPT-4, outperforms existing State-of-the-Art (SOTA) Vision-and-Language Navigation in Continuous Environments (VLN-CE) methods without fine-tuning.

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Qianqian Bai, Zhongpu Chen, Ling Luo, Huaming Du, Yuqian Lei, Ziyun Jiao. 2025-04-09. Endowing Embodied Agents with Spatial Reasoning Capabilities for Vision-and-Language Navigation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.08806

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