CAPE: Context-Aware Diffusion Policy Via Proximal Mode Expansion for Collision Avoidance

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yang, Rui Heng, Zhao, Xuan, Brunswic, Leo Maxime, Alban, Montgomery, Clemente, Mateo, Cao, Tongtong, Jin, Jun, Rasouli, Amir
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866911291912749056
author Yang, Rui Heng
Zhao, Xuan
Brunswic, Leo Maxime
Alban, Montgomery
Clemente, Mateo
Cao, Tongtong
Jin, Jun
Rasouli, Amir
author_facet Yang, Rui Heng
Zhao, Xuan
Brunswic, Leo Maxime
Alban, Montgomery
Clemente, Mateo
Cao, Tongtong
Jin, Jun
Rasouli, Amir
contents In robotics, diffusion models can capture multi-modal trajectories from demonstrations, making them a transformative approach in imitation learning. However, achieving optimal performance following this regiment requires a large-scale dataset, which is costly to obtain, especially for challenging tasks, such as collision avoidance. In those tasks, generalization at test time demands coverage of many obstacles types and their spatial configurations, which are impractical to acquire purely via data. To remedy this problem, we propose Context-Aware diffusion policy via Proximal mode Expansion (CAPE), a framework that expands trajectory distribution modes with context-aware prior and guidance at inference via a novel prior-seeded iterative guided refinement procedure. The framework generates an initial trajectory plan and executes a short prefix trajectory, and then the remaining trajectory segment is perturbed to an intermediate noise level, forming a trajectory prior. Such a prior is context-aware and preserves task intent. Repeating the process with context-aware guided denoising iteratively expands mode support to allow finding smoother, less collision-prone trajectories. For collision avoidance, CAPE expands trajectory distribution modes with collision-aware context, enabling the sampling of collision-free trajectories in previously unseen environments while maintaining goal consistency. We evaluate CAPE on diverse manipulation tasks in cluttered unseen simulated and real-world settings and show up to 26% and 80% higher success rates respectively compared to SOTA methods, demonstrating better generalization to unseen environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_22773
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CAPE: Context-Aware Diffusion Policy Via Proximal Mode Expansion for Collision Avoidance
Yang, Rui Heng
Zhao, Xuan
Brunswic, Leo Maxime
Alban, Montgomery
Clemente, Mateo
Cao, Tongtong
Jin, Jun
Rasouli, Amir
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
In robotics, diffusion models can capture multi-modal trajectories from demonstrations, making them a transformative approach in imitation learning. However, achieving optimal performance following this regiment requires a large-scale dataset, which is costly to obtain, especially for challenging tasks, such as collision avoidance. In those tasks, generalization at test time demands coverage of many obstacles types and their spatial configurations, which are impractical to acquire purely via data. To remedy this problem, we propose Context-Aware diffusion policy via Proximal mode Expansion (CAPE), a framework that expands trajectory distribution modes with context-aware prior and guidance at inference via a novel prior-seeded iterative guided refinement procedure. The framework generates an initial trajectory plan and executes a short prefix trajectory, and then the remaining trajectory segment is perturbed to an intermediate noise level, forming a trajectory prior. Such a prior is context-aware and preserves task intent. Repeating the process with context-aware guided denoising iteratively expands mode support to allow finding smoother, less collision-prone trajectories. For collision avoidance, CAPE expands trajectory distribution modes with collision-aware context, enabling the sampling of collision-free trajectories in previously unseen environments while maintaining goal consistency. We evaluate CAPE on diverse manipulation tasks in cluttered unseen simulated and real-world settings and show up to 26% and 80% higher success rates respectively compared to SOTA methods, demonstrating better generalization to unseen environments.
title CAPE: Context-Aware Diffusion Policy Via Proximal Mode Expansion for Collision Avoidance
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.22773