Motion Planning

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Overview

Motion planning determines how a robot or vehicle can move from a starting state to a goal while avoiding obstacles and respecting limits on dynamics, sensing, and interaction with others. Classical approaches include sampling-based planners such as RRT and PRM, graph search and motion primitives, and trajectory optimization methods such as model predictive control and convex optimization. Learning-based methods, including imitation learning, diffusion models, and learned world models, increasingly propose or refine plans, often alongside geometric checks, reachability analysis, and control barrier functions for safety. A central challenge is balancing speed, solution quality, and formal reliability in uncertain, dynamic, high-dimensional settings, especially when plans must transfer from simulation to physical execution.

Latest papers

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410 papers60 papers in the last four weeks, up 11% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

  1. LLM-guided Planar Loco-Manipulation for Quadruped Robots

    Oct 29, 2026Georges Jetti, Michael Khayyat, Jean-Pierre Sleiman +2Robotic Loco-ManipulationLanguage-Conditioned Robot Planning

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy. · Robotics and AI Institute, USA · Flexion Robotics

  2. Compressed Orientation Reachability Maps for Sub-Second Robotic Needle Entry Point Planning

    Oct 29, 2026Prabhu Nithin Gollapudi, Andreas Maier, Franziska Mathis-Ullrich +3Robot Motion PlanningRobotic Insertion

    Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany · Precision Medtech Co., Ltd, Beijing, China

  3. ScheduleGen: Demonstration Generation via Skill Scheduling for Multi-Arm Imitation Learning

    Oct 29, 2026Neel Jawale, Stephan Pleines, Soha Pouya +3Robot Demonstration GenerationRobot Imitation Learning

    NVIDIA · The University of Texas at Austin

  4. Optimization-based lane-changing trajectory planning in mixed traffic with embedded input convex neural networks

    Oct 28, 2026Yuanxiang Yang, Yu Liu, Fabricio Oliveira +2Motion PlanningAutonomous Driving Planning

    Mobility and Industrial Management (MIM), Faculty of Engineering Science, KU Leuven, Leuven, 3001, Belgium · Department of Built Environment, Aalto University, Espoo, 02150, Finland · Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis, Aalto University, Espoo, 02150, Finland +2

  5. Reward-Guided RRT* for Budgeted Task and Motion Planning

    Oct 26, 2026Vinícius Araújo de Oliveira, Gabriel Ferreira Mendes Lourenço, Paulo L. J. Drews-Jr +2Motion PlanningSampling-Based Motion Planning

    Computer Vision and Robotics Laboratory (VeRLab), Dept. of Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. · NAUTEC, Center for Computational Science, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande - FURG, Rio Grande, Brazil. · Dept. of Electronics Engineering, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

  6. PushAround: Collaborative Path Clearing via Physics-Informed Hybrid Search

    Oct 26, 2026Zili Tang, Zongyuan Li, Zishao Qiao +1Motion PlanningMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Peking University, Beijing 100871, China: School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics · Peking University, Beijing 100871, China: College of Engineering

  7. I Won't Know Until I Try: Interactive Information Gathering for Long-Horizon Manipulation

    Oct 25, 2026Linfei Yuan, Rachel HolladayLong-Horizon Robotic ManipulationMotion Planning

    GRASP Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

  8. Interpretable Collision Avoidance and Feasibility Guarantees through an Uncertainty Aware Pipeline

    Oct 23, 2026Doris Xu, Jin Hyun Park, Guadalupe Alvarado Fernandez +2Safe Motion PlanningRobot Collision Avoidance

    The authors are with the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850.

  9. SAGE: A hybrid vision-language and geometry framework for work-zone pathway prediction under temporary traffic control

    Oct 22, 2026Jiaxi Liu, Keshu Wu, Weizhe Tang +5Autonomous Driving PlanningMotion Planning

    Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, United States

  10. Extending Harmonic Function Methods via Root Locus for Coordinated Path Generation

    Oct 22, 2026Matteo Frascarelli, Lucia Pallottino, Alberto LandiMulti-Robot Motion PlanningMotion Planning

    Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy · Research Center E. Piaggio, Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

  11. SCOPE: Scene-graph Construction Optimized by Plan Error-correction for Robot Long-term Planning Datasets

    Oct 22, 2026Chaoyue Li, Zeyu Gao, Yanfeng Lu +1Synthetic Data Generation for RoboticsRobot Task Planning

    State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASIA), Beijing 100190, China. · School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100049, China.

  12. AgentDreamer: Agentic 3D Motion Reasoning for Text-Controllable Physics Simulation

    Oct 22, 2026Mijeong Kim, Suho Park, Junha Park +1Text-to-Motion GenerationPhysics-Based Simulation

  13. Continuous-Time Motion Planning and Steering with Global Convergence

    Oct 22, 2026Mohsen Amiri, Sima Didari, Davoud Ataee Tarzanagh +2Constrained Motion PlanningMotion Planning

    Samsung SDS Research America, Mountain View, CA, USA

  14. A Transformer-based Approach for Real-time Multi-agent Path Planning with Varying Initial/Final Conditions

    Oct 21, 2026Qian Zhang, Shanqing Liu, Jerome Darbon +1Decentralized Multi-Agent Motion PlanningMulti-Agent Planning

    Division of Applied Mathematics, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.

  15. Planning under Noise with Neural Operators

    Oct 20, 2026Michael Chen, Hong Chul Nam, Xi Deng +1Motion PlanningStochastic Optimal Control

    Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology · Center for Data Science, New York University

  16. SPAR: Search-trained Push Action Ranker for Efficient Navigation Among Movable Obstacles

    Oct 20, 2026Dhruv Metha Ramesh, Tri-An Nguyen, Junshan Huang +3Robotic Object PushingRobot Motion Planning

  17. Vector-Quantized World Model: Latent Feedback Motion Planning for Robot Manipulation

    Oct 19, 2026Xuezhou Xu, Chung-Pang Wang, Zhenzhen Li +1Long-Horizon Robotic ManipulationWorld Model-Based Planning

    New York University, New York, NY, USA. · NVIDIA.

  18. FLASH-CBF-RRT: Fast Lipschitz-Adaptive Safe Horizon CBF Steering for Certified Motion Planning

    Oct 16, 2026Mani Amani, Hesam Mojtahedi, Reza Akhavian +2Motion PlanningSafe Motion Planning

    Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

  19. Shape-Aware Neural Time Fields for Rigid-Body Motion and Manipulation Planning

    Oct 16, 2026Yanming Zhou, Yuchen Liu, Ahmed H. QureshiMotion PlanningRobot Motion Planning

    Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

  20. Auditable and Deployable Multi-Agent Motion Planning via Posetal Games from Legal Guidelines

    Oct 15, 2026Florian Lercher, Karan Mahesh, Yujun Huang +6Decentralized Multi-Agent Motion PlanningMaritime Navigation

    Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. · School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, 85748 Garching, Germany. · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. +2

  21. Safe and Fuel-Efficient Motion Planning for Lunar Propulsive Drones

    Oct 15, 2026Elena Wittemyer, Grace GaoMotion PlanningSafe Motion Planning

    Stanford University, William F. Durand Building, 496 Lomita Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

  22. DemoStream: Batched Task-and-Motion-Plan Optimization for Automated Learning from Demonstration

    Oct 15, 2026Caelan Garrett, Neel Jawale, Fabio RamosLearning from DemonstrationMotion Planning

    NVIDIA · University of Sydney

  23. CLIS-MPPI: Closed-Loop Model Predictive Path Integral Control With Initial-State Sampling Under Execution Delay

    Oct 15, 2026Zidong Liu, Xu ChenMPPI ControlRobot Motion Planning

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

  24. Clarity-Driven Adaptive Mission Planning for a Solar-Powered Autonomous Surface Vessel

    Oct 14, 2026Kavin M. Govindarajan, Kaleb Ben Naveed, David Li +5Informative Path PlanningMotion Planning

    Kavin M. Govindarajan and Kaleb Ben Naveed are with the Department of Robotics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA · David Li is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA · Devansh R. Agrawal is a graduate of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA +1

  25. DD-GBP: Anytime Multi-Arm Planning and Continuous Execution via Distributed Dynamic Gaussian Belief Propagation

    Oct 14, 2026Zhao Jin, Fengyi Dai, Yuetong Yin +3Motion PlanningMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China · Beijing Key Laboratory of Transformative High-end Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China · State Key Laboratory of High-end Heavy-load Robots, Midea Group, Foshan 528300, China

  26. FPTAS for Polygonal Multi-Robot Motion Planning

    Oct 14, 2026Sayan Bandyapadhyay, William Lochet, Saket Saurabh +1Multi-Robot Motion PlanningMotion Planning

    Portland State University, OR, USA. · LIRMM, Universit´e de Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France. · Institute of Mathematical Sciences, HBNI, Chennai and Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai, India. +1

  27. Dual-arm Cooperation for Tabletop Wiping with Temporal Object Removal

    Oct 14, 2026Pengqi Zhang, Longchang Yu, Daohan Li +2Robot Task PlanningMotion Planning

    School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University · Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI) · Delta Intelligence +1

  28. Topology-Preserving Multi-Usage Pipe Centerline Refinement under Permanent Tubular Occupancy

    Oct 14, 2026Deng QuanConstrained OptimizationMotion Planning

  29. Model-Based Online Decision Making via Generative Trajectory Planning

    Oct 13, 2026Haldun Balim, Yilun Du, Na LiModel-Based PlanningModel-Based RL

    Harvard University

  30. From Field to Planning: Learning Temporal Polar Gradient Fields for Vision-based AAV Trajectory Planning in Dynamic Environments

    Oct 10, 2026Haowen Gao, Zhan Chen, Yinuo Xu +3UAV NavigationMotion Planning

    College of Intelligence Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China · College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, China