{"ID":2872664,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08699","arxiv_id":"2509.08699","title":"TANGO: Traversability-Aware Navigation with Local Metric Control for Topological Goals","abstract":"Visual navigation in robotics traditionally relies on globally-consistent 3D maps or learned controllers, which can be computationally expensive and difficult to generalize across diverse environments. In this work, we present a novel RGB-only, object-level topometric navigation pipeline that enables zero-shot, long-horizon robot navigation without requiring 3D maps or pre-trained controllers. Our approach integrates global topological path planning with local metric trajectory control, allowing the robot to navigate towards object-level sub-goals while avoiding obstacles. We address key limitations of previous methods by continuously predicting local trajectory using monocular depth and traversability estimation, and incorporating an auto-switching mechanism that falls back to a baseline controller when necessary. The system operates using foundational models, ensuring open-set applicability without the need for domain-specific fine-tuning. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in both simulated environments and real-world tests, highlighting its robustness and deployability. Our approach outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods, offering a more adaptable and effective solution for visual navigation in open-set environments. The source code is made publicly available: https://github.com/podgorki/TANGO.","short_abstract":"Visual navigation in robotics traditionally relies on globally-consistent 3D maps or learned controllers, which can be computationally expensive and difficult to generalize across diverse environments. In this work, we present a novel RGB-only, object-level topometric navigation pipeline that enables zero-shot, long-ho...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08699","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.08699v1","authors":"[\"Stefan Podgorski\",\"Sourav Garg\",\"Mehdi Hosseinzadeh\",\"Lachlan Mares\",\"Feras Dayoub\",\"Ian Reid\"]","published":"2025-09-10T15:43:32Z","proceeding":"cs.RO","tasks":"[\"cs.RO\",\"cs.AI\",\"cs.CV\",\"cs.LG\",\"eess.SY\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false,"code_links":[{"ID":609988,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_id":2872664,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08699","paper_title":"TANGO: Traversability-Aware Navigation with Local Metric Control for Topological Goals","repo_url":"https://github.com/podgorki/TANGO","is_official":false,"mentioned_in_paper":false,"mentioned_in_github":true,"github_stars":0}]}