A Survey of Robotic Navigation and Manipulation with Physics Simulators in the Era of Embodied AI

Abstract

Navigation and manipulation are core capabilities in Embodied AI, but training agents to perform them directly in the real world is costly, time-consuming, and unsafe. Therefore, sim-to-real transfer has emerged as a key approach, yet the sim-to-real gap persists. This survey examines how physics simulators address this gap by analyzing properties that have received limited attention in prior surveys. We also analyze their features for navigation and manipulation tasks, as well as their hardware requirements. Additionally, we offer a resource with benchmark datasets, metrics, simulation platforms, and methods to help researchers select suitable tools while accounting for hardware constraints.