MiniVLA-Nav v1: A Multi-Scene Simulation Dataset for Language-Conditioned Robot Navigation

arXiv cs.RO / 5/4/2026

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Key Points

  • MiniVLA-Nav v1 is a new simulation dataset for language-conditioned robot navigation under the Language-Conditioned Object Approach (LCOA) framework.
  • It tasks an NVIDIA Nova Carter differential-drive robot to reach and stop at a referenced object, using natural-language instructions across four photorealistic Isaac Sim environments (Office, Hospital, Full Warehouse, and Multiple Shelves).
  • The dataset contains 1,174 episodes with synchronized 640x640 RGB images, metric depth maps (float32 in metres), and instance segmentation masks, plus continuous (v, omega) and tokenized expert action labels recorded at 60 Hz.
  • It includes structured trajectory diversity via three spawn-distance tiers, along with multiple object categories, instruction templates, paraphrase OOD templates, and five evaluation splits for robustness and out-of-distribution testing.
  • MiniVLA-Nav v1 is publicly released on Hugging Face for researchers and developers to train and benchmark navigation policies.

Abstract

We present MiniVLA-Nav v1, a simulation dataset for Language-Conditioned Object Approach (LCOA) navigation: given a short natural-language instruction, an NVIDIA Nova Carter differential-drive robot must navigate to the named object and stop within 1 m across four photorealistic Isaac Sim environments (Office, Hospital, Full Warehouse, and Warehouse with Multiple Shelves). Each of the 1,174 episodes pairs an instruction with synchronized 640x640 RGB images, metric depth maps (float32, metres), and instance segmentation masks, together with continuous (v,omega) and 7x7 tokenized expert action labels recorded at 60 Hz from a vision-based proportional controller. Trajectory diversity is ensured through three spawn-distance tiers (near: 1.5-3.5 m, mid: 3.5-7.0 m, far: global curated points; Pearson r=0.94 between spawn distance and trajectory length), 12 object categories, 18 training templates, and 12 paraphrase-OOD templates. Five evaluation splits support in-distribution accuracy, template-paraphrase robustness, and OOD object-category benchmarking. The dataset is publicly available at https://huggingface.co/datasets/alibustami/miniVLA-Nav