Trajectory Generation

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Overview

Trajectory generation studies how to produce or predict sequences of positions and motions that meet a goal while fitting the environment and the moving agent. Methods range from splines, graph search, model-predictive control, and numerical optimization to learned models such as diffusion, flow matching, transformers, and reinforcement learning. Work spans robot navigation and manipulation, autonomous driving, coordinated fleets, and synthetic human mobility, often conditioning plans on maps, language, dynamics, or other agents. A central challenge is balancing speed and diversity with physical feasibility and safety, while testing whether generated trajectories remain realistic and reliable in new settings.

Latest papers

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182 papers31 papers in the last four weeks, up 55% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

  1. ExecDiffuser: Closing the Sample-to-Execution Gap in Diffusion Planning

    Oct 27, 2026Shuo Pei, Bosun Liang, Saihui Zha +3Autonomous Driving PlanningDiffusion-Based Planning

    Shuo Pei, Saihui Zha, Huachun Tan are with the Beijing Institute of Technology, Guangdong, China. · Shuo Pei, Bosun Liang, Chen Sun, and Yong Wang (Corresponding author) are with the Department of Data and Systems Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.

  2. GaussianSpline: Adaptive Bézier Splines for Highly Dynamic 4D Gaussian Splatting

    Oct 26, 2026Tom Yachil, Andrei SharfDynamic Gaussian SplattingDynamic Scene Reconstruction

    Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

  3. Trajectory Generation and Control for Quadrotors

    Oct 25, 2026Sandesh ThapaQuadrotor ControlTrajectory Generation

    School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Control, Robotics & Automation Lab (CoRAL), Fall 2017 Oklahoma State University Stillwater, Oklahoma

  4. 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

  5. TerraTransfer++: Demonstration-Free End-to-End Planner

    Oct 21, 2026Zikang Xiong, Weixin Li, Zhouchonghao Wu +6End-to-End Autonomous DrivingAutonomous Driving Planning

    Applied Intuition · University of California, Los Angeles · University of California, Berkeley

  6. Beyond Trajectory Statistics: Community-Consistent Human Mobility Generation via Evolving User-Location Graphs

    Oct 20, 2026Bo Liu, Tong Li, Jiapeng Zhang +3Trajectory GenerationGraph Generation

    National Supercomputing Center in Changsha Hunan University Changsha, China

  7. Cartender: Verifiable Language-Conditioned Driving by Learning the Drives Not Taken

    Oct 19, 2026Zhiwen Chen, Benjin Zhu, Yan Xie +1Instruction Generalization in VLA ModelsTrajectory Generation

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (hkust-gz.edu.cn) · Li Auto Inc. (lixiang.com) · The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (ust.hk)

  8. Expand-and-Prune: Test-Time Candidate-Space Adaptation for End-to-End Autonomous Driving

    Oct 16, 2026Fabian Schmidt, Karol Fedurko, Markus Enzweiler +1Autonomous Driving PlanningEnd-to-End Autonomous Driving

    Esslingen University of Applied Sciences · University of Freiburg

  9. Continuous-Time Cloth Dynamics with Physics-Informed Neural ODEs

    Oct 9, 2026Yingdong Ru, Lipeng Zhuang, Zhuo He +1Deformable Object SimulationPhysics-Informed ML

    University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

  10. ManeuverFlow: Maneuver Hypothesis Generation with Future Evidence for Trajectory Evaluation and Refinement in End-to-End Autonomous Driving

    Oct 9, 2026Yuhao Wei, Yong Chen, Chen Yang +7Autonomous Driving PlanningTrajectory Generation

    Chongqing University · Artificial Intelligence Center, Geely Automotive Research Institute

  11. Looking Ahead and Back: Anticipatory Generative Modeling for Road-Network Trajectories

    Oct 9, 2026Zhenhao Huang, Li Sun, Philip S. YuTrajectory GenerationConstrained Generative Modeling

    North China Electric Power University · Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications · University of Illinois Chicago

  12. Cubic Spline Interpolation for Smooth Trajectory Generation in Autonomous Motion Systems

    Oct 9, 2026Aarush Mandayam, Sriram Aditya Gundla, Elliott TammaroTrajectory GenerationRobot Motion Generation

    110x Accel · Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  13. CASTER: Formalizing Zero-Shot Manipulation from Synthetic Videos as Constrained Optimization

    Oct 8, 2026Yinlong Dai, Homanga Bharadhwaj, Dylan P. LoseyZero-Shot Robotic ManipulationRobotic Manipulation

    Collab, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. · B3, Dept. of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.

  14. MotiveMob: Motivation as Semantic Action for Closed-Loop Human Mobility Generation

    Oct 8, 2026Mengkun Gao, Zengqing Wu, Renhe Jiang +6Human Behavior ModelingTrajectory Generation

    The University of Osaka · The University of Tokyo · The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology +1

  15. Pareto-Optimal Entropy-Regularized Trajectory Optimization

    Oct 6, 2026Dimitrios S. Georgiou, Augustinos D. Saravanos, Evangelos A. TheodorouTrajectory OptimizationTrajectory Generation

    Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA. · Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

  16. Beyond Waypoint Regression: Query-Based Cost Learning over Reachable Ego Futures for End-to-End Driving

    Oct 6, 2026Ahmed Abouelazm, Rupert Polley, Qingyuan Zhang +4Trajectory GenerationEnd-to-End Autonomous Driving

    FZI Research Center for Information Technology · Karlsruhe Institute of Technology · CARIAD SE

  17. Revisiting Numerical Forecasting Models for Language-Based Trajectory Prediction

    Oct 6, 2026JunGyu Lee, Inhwan Bae, Hae-Gon JeonReward ModelingRL for Language Models

    Yonsei University · DGIST

  18. Robust Nonprehensile Object Transport with Quadruped Robots

    Oct 5, 2026Ainoor Teimoorzadeh, Riccardo Pretto, Mario Selvaggio +2Trajectory OptimizationTrajectory Generation

    Munich Institute of Robotics & Machine Intelligence, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany · Tampere University, Finland · PRISMA Lab, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Naples Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80125, Naples, Italy +1

  19. MoCAR: Motion-code Coordinate-aware AutoRegression for Continuous Trajectory Forecasting

    Oct 5, 2026Yiming Xu, Hao Cheng, Monika SesterTrajectory GenerationTrajectory Representation Learning

    Institute of Cartography and Geoinformatics Leibniz University Hannover, 30167 Hannover, Germany · Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation University of Twente, 7522 NH Enschede, The Netherlands

  20. Flash-OPD: Fast On-Policy Distillation

    Oct 5, 2026Wei Chen, Junle Chen, Yitong Yang +6Trajectory GenerationOn-Policy Distillation

    Tencent Hy · HKUST(GZ) · HKUST

  21. P3: Persistent Particle Planning for Constrained Diffusion Control

    Oct 5, 2026Hikmet Simsir, Mahyar Fardinfar, Ozgur S. OguzConstrained Motion PlanningTrajectory Generation

    Department of Computer Engineering, Bilkent University

  22. Selecting Long-Horizon Trajectories for Reliable and Efficient Terminal-Agent Training

    Oct 5, 2026Cuong Dang, Hoang Anh Just, Ruoxi JiaSupervised Fine-TuningTrajectory Generation

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA, USA

  23. Dynamics-Aware Adaptive Corridors with Feasibility-Perturbed Trust-Region SQP for Certified Nonholonomic Motion Planning

    Oct 5, 2026Yang ShiConstrained Motion PlanningTrajectory Generation

    Jiangsu College of Safety Technology, Jiangsu, China

  24. Spacecraft Rendezvous Trajectory Generation with Modular Constraints via Diffusion Model Composition

    Oct 5, 2026Mariko A. Storey-Matsutani, Richard LinaresConstrained Generative ModelingTrajectory Generation

    Graduate Student, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Inst. of Technology, Cambridge MA · Associate Professor, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Inst. of Technology, Cambridge MA

  25. Relative Transitions, Not Absolute Destinations: A Transfer-and-Ground Framework for Target-Trajectory-Free Human Mobility Generation

    Oct 1, 2026Yidi Wang, Yunhe Zhang, Bangchao Deng +2Trajectory Generation

    SKL-IOTSC, Department of CIS, University of Macau Macau SAR, China

  26. 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

  27. DiffWAM: A Fast and Efficient Navigation World Action Model

    Sep 30, 2026Mo Zhu, Yuze Wu, Xijie Huang +3Trajectory GenerationWorld Models for Robotics

    Zhejiang University · Differential Robotics

  28. Occlusion-Aware, Quasi-Static, Stability-Oriented Trajectory Planning on Uneven Terrain

    Sep 30, 2026Amith Manoharan, Chinmay Mundane, Aayush Bahukhandi +3Trajectory OptimizationOff-Road Robot Navigation

    Institute of Technology, University of Tartu, Estonia · RRC, IIIT Hyderabad, India · Czech Technical University, Prague

  29. HorizonFlow: Variable-Length Planning for Offline Goal-Conditioned RL

    Sep 29, 2026JunHyeok Oh, Zian Jang, Byung-Jun LeeHierarchical PlanningTrajectory Generation

    Korea University. · Gauss Labs Inc., Seoul, Republic of Korea.

  30. Trajectory-Level Mode Guidance for Controllable Diffusion-Based Multi-Robot Motion Planning

    Sep 29, 2026Tianyou Yu, Shengze Cai, Chao XuMulti-Robot Motion PlanningTrajectory Generation

    Institute of Cyber-System and Control, College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China