OrbiSim: World Models as Differentiable Physics Engines for Embodied Intelligence

arXiv:2605.16395v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We present OrbiSim, a novel robotic simulation paradigm that redefines world models as a fully differentiable physics engine for embodied intelligence. Unlike prior world models that focus on unconstrained imagination in latent or visual domains, OrbiSim establishes a unified, physically-grounded pathway that bridges structured scene assets, neural dynamics, and downstream reinforcement learning. By enabling end-to-end differentiability throughout the entire simulation loop -- spanning from explicit state transitions to visual observation generation -- OrbiSim supports tasks traditionally intractable for classical simulators, such as differentiable contact modeling, gradient-based policy optimization under sparse rewards, and intuitive physical inference. Empirical results demonstrate that OrbiSim significantly outperforms state-of-the-art world models in both predictive fidelity and control performance. Furthermore, its consistent responsiveness to asset configurations and physical parameters suggests its potential as a differentiable tool for enhancing robot simulation and policy training.

Abstract:We present OrbiSim, a novel robotic simulation paradigm that redefines world models as a fully differentiable physics engine for embodied intelligence. Unlike prior world models that focus on unconstrained imagination in latent or visual domains, OrbiSim establishes a unified, physically-grounded pathway that bridges structured scene assets, neural dynamics, and downstream reinforcement learning. By enabling end-to-end differentiability throughout the entire simulation loop -- spanning from explicit state transitions to visual observation generation -- OrbiSim supports tasks traditionally intractable for classical simulators, such as differentiable contact modeling, gradient-based policy optimization under sparse rewards, and intuitive physical inference. Empirical results demonstrate that OrbiSim significantly outperforms state-of-the-art world models in both predictive fidelity and control performance. Furthermore, its consistent responsiveness to asset configurations and physical parameters suggests its potential as a differentiable tool for enhancing robot simulation and policy training.

Robotics (cs.RO); Machine Learning (cs.LG)

arXiv:2605.16395 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2605.16395v2 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.16395 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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OrbiSim: World Models as Differentiable Physics Engines for Embodied Intelligence

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