mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Movement Primitive Diffusion: Learning Gentle Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects

arXiv 2312.10008 ↗First posted 15 Dec 2023cs.RO cs.AI cs.LGcited by 40

On the map: Offline RL and imitation learning from data → Safe offline RL

Abstract (arXiv)

Policy learning in robot-assisted surgery (RAS) lacks data efficient and versatile methods that exhibit the desired motion quality for delicate surgical interventions. To this end, we introduce Movement Primitive Diffusion (MPD), a novel method for imitation learning (IL) in RAS that focuses on gentle manipulation of deformable objects. The approach combines the versatility of diffusion-based imitation learning (DIL) with the high-quality motion generation capabilities of Probabilistic Dynamic Movement Primitives (ProDMPs). This combination enables MPD to achieve gentle manipulation of deformable objects, while maintaining data efficiency critical for RAS applications where demonstration data is scarce. We evaluate MPD across various simulated and real world robotic tasks on both state and image observations. MPD outperforms state-of-the-art DIL methods in success rate, motion quality, and data efficiency. Project page: https://scheiklp.github.io/movement-primitive-diffusion/

Key facts. Cited by 40 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Safe offline RL, one of 13 directions in Offline RL and imitation learning from data. Builds on 15 of its 27 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 15 Dec 2023.

Builds on

15 of 27 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2021Learning from Demonstrations for Autonomous Soft-tissue Retraction1 Oct

Other references · 14

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  2. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,067
  3. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Modelscited by 2,994
  4. 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusioncited by 2,730
  5. 2022DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Stepscited by 1,961
  6. 2021Implicit Behavioral Cloningcited by 442
  7. 2023Goal-Conditioned Imitation Learning using Score-based Diffusion Policiescited by 229
  8. 2022ProDMPs: A Unified Perspective on Dynamic and Probabilistic Movement Primitivescited by 25
  9. 2019Autonomous Tissue Manipulation via Surgical Robot Using Learning Based Model Predictive Controlcited by 12
  10. 2023LapGym -- An Open Source Framework for Reinforcement Learning in Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Surgerycited by 12
  11. 2021Cooperative Assistance in Robotic Surgery through Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 10
  12. 2021Learning Visual Shape Control of Novel 3D Deformable Objects from Partial-View Point Cloudscited by 9
2 more
  1. 2023Sim-to-Real Surgical Robot Learning and Autonomous Planning for Internal Tissue Points Manipulation using Reinforcement Learningcited by 8
  2. 2019Toward Synergic Learning for Autonomous Manipulation of Deformable Tissues via Surgical Robots: An Approximate Q-Learning Approachcited by 3

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 19; 2025: 14; 2026: 7.

40 papers.

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  1. 2024Multimodal Diffusion Transformer: Learning Versatile Behavior from Multimodal Goalscited by 131
  2. 2025Dita: Scaling Diffusion Transformer for Generalist Vision-Language-Action Policycited by 73
  3. 2025Efficient Online Reinforcement Learning for Diffusion Policycited by 61
  4. 2024Streaming Diffusion Policy: Fast Policy Synthesis with Variable Noise Diffusion Modelscited by 51
  5. 2024Efficient Diffusion Transformer Policies with Mixture of Expert Denoisers for Multitask Learningcited by 46
  6. 2024Diffusion Transformer Policycited by 41
  7. 2025Diffusion Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Surveycited by 39
  8. 2024Surgical Robot Transformer (SRT): Imitation Learning for Surgical Taskscited by 38
  9. 2024Deep Generative Models in Robotics: A Survey on Learning from Multimodal Demonstrationscited by 35
  10. 2024Motion Planning Diffusion: Learning and Adapting Robot Motion Planning with Diffusion Modelscited by 32
  11. 2025BEAST: Efficient Tokenization of B-Splines Encoded Action Sequences for Imitation Learningcited by 25
  12. 2025SRT-H: A Hierarchical Framework for Autonomous Surgery via Language Conditioned Imitation Learningcited by 23
28 more
  1. 2024Don't Start from Scratch: Behavioral Refinement via Interpolant-based Policy Diffusioncited by 21
  2. 2025One-Step Flow Policy Mirror Descentcited by 18
  3. 2024Variational Distillation of Diffusion Policies into Mixture of Expertscited by 14
  4. 2024MaIL: Improving Imitation Learning with Mambacited by 11
  5. 2025Diffusion-Based Hierarchical Graph Neural Networks for Simulating Nonlinear Solid Mechanicscited by 10
  6. 2024A Robotic Skill Learning System Built Upon Diffusion Policies and Foundation Modelscited by 8
  7. 2025Diverse Controllable Diffusion Policy with Signal Temporal Logiccited by 8
  8. 2024Preference Aligned Diffusion Planner for Quadrupedal Locomotion Controlcited by 7
  9. 2026Training-Free Adaptation of Diffusion Models via Doob's h-Transformcited by 6
  10. 2025Real-Time Operator Takeover for Visuomotor Diffusion Policy Trainingcited by 5
  11. 2025Towards Suturing World Models: Learning Predictive Models for Robotic Surgical Taskscited by 5
  12. 2024Learning Diverse Robot Striking Motions with Diffusion Models and Kinematically Constrained Gradient Guidancecited by 4
  13. 2024LUDO: Low-Latency Understanding of Deformable Objects using Point Cloud Occupancy Functionscited by 4
  14. 2024Optimizing Active Perception for Learning Simultaneous Viewpoint Selection and Manipulation with Diffusion Policycited by 3
  15. 2024Enhancing Exploration with Diffusion Policies in Hybrid Off-Policy RL: Application to Non-Prehensile Manipulationcited by 3
  16. 2025How Well do Diffusion Policies Learn Kinematic Constraint Manifolds?cited by 3
  17. 2024Use the Force, Bot! -- Force-Aware ProDMP with Event-Based Replanningcited by 2
  18. 2024Implicit Contact Diffuser: Sequential Contact Reasoning with Latent Point Cloud Diffusioncited by 1
  19. 2025FRMD: Fast Robot Motion Diffusion with Consistency-Distilled Movement Primitives for Smooth Action Generationcited by 1
  20. 2026Frequency-Aware Flow Matching for Continuous and Consistent Robotic Action Generationcited by 1
  21. 2026Hermite Curves as Trajectory Priors for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 1
  22. 2024Learning Generalizable 3D Manipulation With 10 Demonstrationscited by 0
  23. 2025Find the Fruit: Zero-Shot Sim2Real RL for Occlusion-Aware Plant Manipulationcited by 0
  24. 2025SeFA-Policy: Fast and Accurate Visuomotor Policy Learning with Selective Flow Alignmentcited by 0
  25. 2026FODMP: Fast One-Step Diffusion of Movement Primitives Generation for Time-Dependent Robot Actionscited by 0
  26. 2026Efficient and Uncertainty-Aware Diffusion Framework for Offline-to-Online Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
  27. 2026Dressing in Motion: A Human Motion-Aware Diffusion Policy for Robot-Assisted Dressingcited by 0
  28. 2026DROM: A Language-Guided Diffusion Framework for Multi-Skill Robotic Manipulationcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024WARPD: World model Assisted Reactive Policy Diffusion
  2. 2025Diffusion Stabilizer Policy for Automated Surgical Robot Manipulations
  3. 2025Time-Unified Diffusion Policy with Action Discrimination for Robotic Manipulation
  4. 2025Two-Steps Diffusion Policy for Robotic Manipulation via Genetic Denoising
  5. 2025DemoDiffusion: One-Shot Human Imitation using pre-trained Diffusion Policy
  6. 2026SegDiff: Segmented Trajectory Diffusion for Consistent and Adaptive Robot Manipulation
  7. 2024Motion Before Action: Diffusing Object Motion as Manipulation Condition
  8. 2024Hierarchical Diffusion Policy: manipulation trajectory generation via contact guidance