Multi-Robot Motion Planning

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Overview

Multi-robot motion planning studies how teams can reach goals, cover areas, or manipulate objects without colliding or blocking one another. Approaches include grid-based multi-agent path finding, roadmaps and sampling-based search, conflict-based coordination, and trajectory optimization with model predictive control. Learning methods such as reinforcement learning, graph neural networks, and diffusion models increasingly help generate or refine plans, often alongside explicit safety checks. A central challenge is scaling to larger, more dynamic teams while keeping plans safe, executable under real robot dynamics, and robust to uncertainty or limited communication.

Latest papers

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150 papers27 papers in the last four weeks, up 42% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

  1. Late Autumn: LLM Agents Specialize a General Multi-Robot Planner for One Warehouse

    Nov 2, 2026Yimin Tang, Han Zhang, Shao-Hung Chan +3Multi-Robot Motion PlanningLarge Language Model-Guided Optimization

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California · Symbotic · Department of Computer Science, University of California Irvine

  2. A complete analytical characterization of optimal collision-free motion for two robots

    Oct 30, 2026Jan Kamm, Antonio Terpin, Raffaello D'AndreaMulti-Robot Motion PlanningTrajectory Optimization

    Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

  3. Contact-based optimization for collision-free motion planning for a million robots

    Oct 30, 2026Jan Kamm, Antonio Terpin, Raffaello D'AndreaMulti-Robot Motion PlanningTrajectory Optimization

    Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  4. AC-SMPC: Differentiable Actor--Critic MPC with State Constraints for Safe and Fast Robot Navigation

    Oct 30, 2026Chaoran Wu, Jiayu Fan, Qichen Tan +2Model Predictive ControlConstrained Motion Planning

    School of Future Science and Engineering, Soochow University, Suzhou 215222, China · Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Shanghai 200233, China

  5. CONSORT: Uncertainty-Constrained Multi-Robot Planning for Cooperative Localization in GPS-Denied Environments

    Oct 30, 2026Tony Zhang, Ryan Bartholomew, Kalliyan Velasco +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningBelief-Space Planning

    Authors are with the FROST Lab, Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA. · T. Zhang is with the Kahlert School of Computing, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA, and contributed to this work as a visiting undergraduate researcher in the FROST Lab.

  6. Learning Side-by-Side Navigation for Personal Mobility Vehicles from Human Drivers

    Oct 27, 2026Luis Yoichi Morales, Florent FerreriMulti-Robot Motion PlanningAutonomous Driving

  7. cuArms: GPU-Accelerated Conflict-Based Planning for Multi-Arm Manipulation

    Oct 26, 2026Philip Huang, Fabio Ramos, Jiaoyang Li +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningMulti-Task Robotic Manipulation

    NVIDIA · Carnegie Mellon · University of Sydney

  8. 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

  9. HARP: Handoff-Aware Recovery Planning for Active Target Acquisition in Multi-UAV Handoff

    Oct 24, 2026Heegyeong Kim, Alice James, Avishkar Seth +2Aerial RoboticsMulti-Robot Motion Planning

  10. PPO vs. SAC: A Comparative Study for Cooperative Motion Control of Dual-Arm Space Robots

    Oct 23, 2026Nasim Fallahiarezoodar, Zheng H. ZhuSpace RoboticsBimanual Robotic Manipulation

    Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, York University, M3J1P3 · Mechanical Engineering, York University, M3J1P3

  11. 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

  12. Dispersive Tree Agreements for Multi-Robot Coordination

    Oct 22, 2026Shashank A. Deshpande, Blake T. Edwards, Jonathan P. HowMulti-Robot CoordinationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

  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 GPU-Resident Pipeline for Multi-Robot 3D Inspection with Limited Perception

    Oct 19, 2026Kryštof Pšenička, Stefan EdelkampRobotic InspectionMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Department of Theoretical Computer Science and Mathematical Logic, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

  15. Learning Waypoints and Passage Events for Decentralized Multi-Quadrotor Trajectory Planning

    Oct 18, 2026Yunhan Shi, Jia Deng, Zehao Jia +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningMulti-Robot Coordination

    School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China · Astroup(Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. Competitive Task Allocation with Temporal Proposal Windows and Improved Artificial Potential Fields for Dual-Arm Industrial Manipulation

    Oct 11, 2026Surya Prakash S. K, Bhuvan Narula, Jagannath Prasad Sahoo +3Industrial RoboticsBimanual Robotic Manipulation

    School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, IIT Mandi, Kamand, Mandi, 175005, H.P, India. · R&D, Addverb Technologies Limited, Sec-156, Phase-II, Noida, 201310, UP, India. · Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, IIT Mandi, Kamand, Mandi, 175005, H.P, India. +1

  19. Distributed area coverage path planning subject to the inclusion of a headland path

    Oct 11, 2026Mogens PlessenCoverage Path PlanningMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Findklein GmbH, Switzerland

  20. CoPlanVLM: Coordinated Path Planning for a Robot Team using Vision Language Models

    Oct 9, 2026David R. Martin, Jared Paquet, Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruque +4Robot Task PlanningMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine · Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida · Torch Technologies, LLC in Shalimar, FL +1

  21. Akule: Fast and Scalable Multi-Robot Motion Planning via Sparse Interaction Diffusion

    Oct 9, 2026Manav Vora, Gokul Puthumanaillam, Aditya Penumarti +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningDiffusion-Based Planning

  22. MAGMA-Bench: Evaluating Long-Horizon Embodied Agents under Dynamic Tasks and Execution Failures

    Oct 9, 2026Loan Bernat, Matthieu Grard, Ariane Herbulot +1Embodied Agent BenchmarksLong-Horizon Agent Evaluation

    LAAS-GEPETTO · LAAS-RAP

  23. Verifier-Mediated Multi-LLM Coordination for Multi-Robot Path Planning

    Oct 8, 2026Vivek Khatana, Zijian Song, Naira Hovakimyan +1Multi-Robot CoordinationLarge Language Model-Based Robot Planning

    Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA · Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA

  24. A Physics-Informed Collision Learning Framework for Collaborative Robot Motion Generation

    Oct 8, 2026Chen Cai, Steven LiuRobot Collision AvoidanceRobot Motion Generation

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kaiserslautern Landau, Kaiserslautern, 67663, Germany

  25. Distributed Motion Planning for Multi-Robot Systems under Topological Constraints

    Oct 7, 2026Gianpietro Battocletti, Dimitris Boskos, Dimos V. Dimarogonas +1Multi-Robot Motion PlanningMulti-Robot Coordination

    Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. · Division of Decision And Control Systems, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

  26. Multi-Robot Multi-Goal Motion Planning with Stochastic Skills

    Oct 6, 2026William Schnyder, Valentin N. Hartmann, Stelian CorosMulti-Robot Motion PlanningMotion Planning

    Computational Robotics Lab (CRL), ETH Zürich

  27. Traversability-Aware Cooperative Path Planning for Human-UGV Casualty Evacuation

    Oct 5, 2026Kristian Dalland, Prithvi Poddar, Souma Chowdhury +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningHuman-Robot Collaboration

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University at Buffalo, NY 14260, USA · Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo, NY 14260, USA

  28. GAMBIT: Learning to Plan Continuous Multi-Robot Trajectories

    Oct 5, 2026Rishabh Jain, Akmaral Moldagalieva, Lorenzo Magnino +5RL for RoboticsMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    University of Cambridge, UK · Technical University of Berlin, Germany · National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan

  29. PB-STDG: A Prediction-Based Short-Term Decentralized Greedy Guidance Algorithm for a Drone Road System

    Oct 4, 2026Zhouyu Qu, Andreas Willig, Xiaobing WuCollision AvoidanceMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Dept. of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, 8140, New Zealand · Wireless Research Centre, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, 8140, New Zealand

  30. Training-Free Diffusion Planning with Analytical Local Scores

    Oct 1, 2026Michael Y. Fatemi, Jinhao Liang, Ferdinando FiorettoMulti-Robot Motion PlanningConstrained Motion Planning

    University of Virginia