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Main Authors: Long, Jieting, Liu, Dechuan, Cai, Weidong, Manchester, Ian, Zhi, Weiming
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.15567
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author Long, Jieting
Liu, Dechuan
Cai, Weidong
Manchester, Ian
Zhi, Weiming
author_facet Long, Jieting
Liu, Dechuan
Cai, Weidong
Manchester, Ian
Zhi, Weiming
contents Robot motion distributions often exhibit multi-modality and require flexible generative models for accurate representation. Streaming Flow Policies (SFPs) have recently emerged as a powerful paradigm for generating robot trajectories by integrating learned velocity fields directly in action space, enabling smooth and reactive control. However, existing formulations lack mechanisms for adapting trajectories post-training to enforce safety and task-specific constraints. We propose Constraint-Aware Streaming Flow (CASF), a framework that augments streaming flow policies with constraint-dependent metrics that reshape the learned velocity field during execution. CASF models each constraint, defined in either the robot's workspace or configuration space, as a differentiable distance function that is converted into a local metric and pulled back into the robot's control space. Far from restricted regions, the resulting metric reduces to the identity; near constraint boundaries, it smoothly attenuates or redirects motion, effectively deforming the underlying flow to maintain safety. This allows trajectories to be adapted in real time, ensuring that robot actions respect joint limits, avoid collisions, and remain within feasible workspaces, while preserving the multi-modal and reactive properties of streaming flow policies. We demonstrate CASF in simulated and real-world manipulation tasks, showing that it produces constraint-satisfying trajectories that remain smooth, feasible, and dynamically consistent, outperforming standard post-hoc projection baselines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_15567
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Constraining Streaming Flow Models for Adapting Learned Robot Trajectory Distributions
Long, Jieting
Liu, Dechuan
Cai, Weidong
Manchester, Ian
Zhi, Weiming
Robotics
Robot motion distributions often exhibit multi-modality and require flexible generative models for accurate representation. Streaming Flow Policies (SFPs) have recently emerged as a powerful paradigm for generating robot trajectories by integrating learned velocity fields directly in action space, enabling smooth and reactive control. However, existing formulations lack mechanisms for adapting trajectories post-training to enforce safety and task-specific constraints. We propose Constraint-Aware Streaming Flow (CASF), a framework that augments streaming flow policies with constraint-dependent metrics that reshape the learned velocity field during execution. CASF models each constraint, defined in either the robot's workspace or configuration space, as a differentiable distance function that is converted into a local metric and pulled back into the robot's control space. Far from restricted regions, the resulting metric reduces to the identity; near constraint boundaries, it smoothly attenuates or redirects motion, effectively deforming the underlying flow to maintain safety. This allows trajectories to be adapted in real time, ensuring that robot actions respect joint limits, avoid collisions, and remain within feasible workspaces, while preserving the multi-modal and reactive properties of streaming flow policies. We demonstrate CASF in simulated and real-world manipulation tasks, showing that it produces constraint-satisfying trajectories that remain smooth, feasible, and dynamically consistent, outperforming standard post-hoc projection baselines.
title Constraining Streaming Flow Models for Adapting Learned Robot Trajectory Distributions
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.15567