Robot Task Planning

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Overview

Robot task planning studies how a robot can turn an instruction or mission into ordered actions that fit its abilities, surroundings, and physical constraints. Approaches range from symbolic planners such as PDDL, behavior trees, and temporal logic to language- and vision-language models, learned skills, and world models; many combine these with motion planning or formal verification. Hierarchical plans, scene representations, and feedback-driven replanning are used across household tasks, navigation, manipulation, and assembly, with benchmarks increasingly testing long task sequences and changing environments. A central challenge is making flexible plans reliably executable: systems must ground language in physical state, recover from errors, and satisfy safety constraints without excessive computation or human intervention.

Latest papers

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242 papers45 papers in the last four weeks, up 55% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

  1. SYMBOLIZER: Symbolic Model-free Task Planning with VLMs

    Apr 20, 2026Sami Azirar, Zlatan Ajanovic, Hermann BlumSymbolic PlanningRobot Task Planning

    RWTH Aachen · Robot Perception and Learning Lab, University of Bonn · Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

  2. GaLa: Hypergraph-Guided Visual Language Models for Procedural Planning

    Apr 19, 2026Kun Wang, Yiming Li, Mingcheng Qu +3Visual Spatial ReasoningRobot Task Planning

    Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China · Chongqing Research Institute of HIT, Chongqing, China · Guangdong Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy (SZ), Shenzhen, China

  3. ADAPT: Benchmarking Commonsense Planning under Unspecified Affordance Constraints

    Apr 16, 2026Pei-An Chen, Yong-Ching Liang, Jia-Fong Yeh +4Robot Task PlanningRobot Manipulation Benchmarks

    National Taiwan University · National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University · National Tsing Hua University

  4. Scale-Invariant Sampling in Multi-Arm Bandit Motion Planning for Object Extraction

    Apr 15, 2026Servet B. Bayraktar, Andreas Orthey, Marc ToussaintSampling-Based Motion PlanningRobot Task Planning

    Technical University of Berlin

  5. Goal2Skill: Long-Horizon Manipulation with Adaptive Planning and Reflection

    Apr 15, 2026Zhen Liu, Xinyu Ning, Zhe Hu +8Long-Horizon Robotic ManipulationRobot Task Planning

    Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications · InspireOmni AI · Tsinghua University

  6. A hierarchical spatial-aware algorithm with efficient reinforcement learning for human-robot task planning and allocation in production

    Apr 14, 2026Jintao Xue, Xiao Li, Nianmin ZhangRobot Task PlanningHuman-Robot Collaboration

    Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

  7. From Kinematics to Dynamics: Learning to Refine Hybrid Plans for Physically Feasible Execution

    Apr 14, 2026Lidor Erez, Shahaf S. Shperberg, Ayal TaitlerRobot Task PlanningConstrained Motion Planning

    Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel · Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel

  8. Grounded World Model: Latent Planning with Language Goals

    Apr 13, 2026Quanyi Li, Lan Feng, Haonan Zhang +4Language-Conditioned Robot PlanningWorld Models for Robotics

    EPFL · NUS

  9. Ro-SLM: Onboard Small Language Models for Robot Task Planning and Operation Code Generation

    Apr 13, 2026Wenhao Wang, Yanyan Li, Long Jiao +1Code Generation for RoboticsSmall Language Models

    Department of Computer & Information Science, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth · Department of Computer Science & Engineering, California State University San Marcos

  10. RoboAgent: Chaining Basic Capabilities for Embodied Task Planning

    Apr 9, 2026Peiran Xu, Jiaqi Zheng, Yadong MuRobot Task PlanningEmbodied Reasoning

    Peking University, Beijing, China · XYZ Embodied AI, Beijing, China

  11. Sampling-based Task and Kinodynamic Motion Planning under Semantic Uncertainty

    Apr 1, 2026Qi Heng Ho, Zachary N. Sunberg, Morteza LahijanianSemantic Uncertainty EstimationRobot Task Planning

    Q. H. Ho is with the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA · Z. N. Sunberg and M. Lahijanian are with the Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA

  12. On-Demand Human Assistance for Task Continuation under Physical Action Failures in LLM-based Planning

    Mar 30, 2026Shoichi Hasegawa, Akira Taniguchi, Lotfi El Hafi +2Large Language Model-Based Robot PlanningRobot Failure Recovery

    Shoichi Hasegawa and Akira Taniguchi are with Ritsumeikan University; 2-150 Iwakura, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-8570, Japan. · Akira Taniguchi is with Kyushu Institute of Technology; 680-4 Kawadu, Iizuka, Fukuoka 820-0067, Japan. · Lotfi El Hafi is with Coarobo GK; 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika, Soura, Kyoto 619-0237, Japan. +4

  13. Event-Driven Proactive Assistive Manipulation with Grounded Vision-Language Planning

    Mar 25, 2026Fengkai Liu, Hao Su, Haozhuang Chi +6Assistive RoboticsHuman-Robot Collaboration

    The University of Osaka · Nanyang Technological University · The University of Tokyo

  14. DUPLEX: Agentic Dual-System Planning via LLM-Driven Information Extraction

    Mar 25, 2026Keru Hua, Ding Wang, Yaoying Gu +1Robot Task PlanningLLM Agent Planning

    Midea Corporate Research Center, Midea Group, Foshan, China · Robot Science and Engineering Department, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China

  15. Grounding Vision and Language to 3D Masks for Long-Horizon Box Rearrangement

    Mar 24, 2026Ashish Malik, Caleb Lowe, Aayam Shrestha +3Robot Task PlanningRobotic Manipulation

    Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering, Oregon State University

  16. ManiDreams: An Open-Source Library for Robust Object Manipulation via Uncertainty-aware Task-specific Intuitive Physics

    Mar 18, 2026Gaotian Wang, Kejia Ren, Andrew S. Morgan +1Robotic ManipulationRobot Task Planning

    Department of Computer Science, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA · Robotics and AI Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

  17. SG-CoT: An Ambiguity-Aware Robotic Planning Framework using Scene Graph Representations

    Mar 18, 2026Akshat Rana, Peeyush Agarwal, K. P. S. Rana +1Large Language Model-Based Robot PlanningRobot Task Planning

    Netaji Subhas University of Technology, Dwarka, 110078, Delhi, India.

  18. CABTO: Context-Aware Behavior Tree Grounding for Robot Manipulation

    Mar 17, 2026Yishuai Cai, Xinglin Chen, Yunxin Mao +6Robotic ControlRobotic Manipulation

    National University of Defense Technology · PsiBot · PKU-Psibot Lab +1

  19. AsgardBench -- Evaluating Visually Grounded Interactive Planning Under Minimal Feedback

    Mar 16, 2026Andrea Tupini, Lars Liden, Reuben Tan +2AI Agent BenchmarksLLM Agent Planning

    Microsoft Research

  20. Formalisms for Robotic Mission Specification and Execution: A Comparative Analysis

    Mar 16, 2026Gianluca Filippone, Sara Pettinari, Patrizio PelliccioneBehavior TreesRobot Task Planning

    Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L’Aquila, Italy

  21. LDHP: Library-Driven Hierarchical Planning for Non-prehensile Dexterous Manipulation

    Mar 14, 2026Tierui He, Jiahui Zuo, Fumin Zhang +1Hierarchical PlanningContact-Rich Manipulation

    Shanghai Marine Equipment Research Institute, Shanghai 200031, China. · J. Zuo and F. Zhang are with The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong. · C. Zhao is with Jilin University, Changchun, China.

  22. RoboStream: Weaving Spatio-Temporal Reasoning with Memory in Vision-Language Models for Robotics

    Mar 13, 2026Yuzhi Huang, Jie Wu, Weijue Bu +9Long-Horizon Robotic ManipulationRobot Task Planning

    Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University · YuanxingGuangnian Robotics · China University of Mining and Technology +3

  23. Spatially Grounded Long-Horizon Task Planning in the Wild

    Mar 13, 2026Sehun Jung, HyunJee Song, Dong-Hee Kim +4Robot Task PlanningLong-Horizon Robotic Manipulation

    Korea University · Microsoft Research · University of Wisconsin-Madison

  24. Autonomous Integration and Improvement of Robotic Assembly using Skill Graph Representations

    Mar 13, 2026Peiqi Yu, Philip Huang, Chaitanya Chawla +3Robotic AssemblyRobot Task Planning

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University · Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

  25. SVLL: Staged Vision-Language Learning for Physically Grounded Embodied Task Planning

    Mar 12, 2026Yuyuan Yang, Junkun Hong, Hongrong Wang +11Visual Grounding for RoboticsLarge Language Model-Based Robot Planning

    FNii-Shenzhen, CUHKSZ · Shenzhen University · SAI, CUHKSZ +4

  26. Contextual Graph Representations for Task-Driven 3D Perception and Planning

    Mar 12, 2026Christopher AgiaRobot Task PlanningGraph-Based Planning

  27. Deployment-Time Reliability of Learned Robot Policies

    Mar 12, 2026Christopher AgiaRoboticsRobotic Policy Evaluation

    THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY

  28. Perceptive Hierarchical-Task MPC for Sequential Mobile Manipulation in Unstructured Semi-Static Environments

    Mar 10, 2026Xintong Du, Jingxing Qian, Siqi Zhou +13D Scene Change DetectionMobile Manipulation

    University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Canada. · School of Computing Science, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. · Learning Systems and Robotics lab at the Technical University of Munich and the Munich Institute for Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), Germany.

  29. TiPToP: A Modular Open-Vocabulary Robot Manipulation System That Plans

    Mar 10, 2026William Shen, Nishanth Kumar, Sahit Chintalapudi +8Robotic ManipulationRobot Task Planning

    MIT CSAIL · University of Pennsylvania

  30. Characterization, Analytical Planning, and Hybrid Force Control for the Inspire RH56DFX Hand

    Mar 9, 2026Xuan Tan, William Xie, Nikolaus CorrellRobotic GraspingDexterous Manipulation

    Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder