mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Diffusion Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey

arXiv 2504.08438 ↗First posted 11 Apr 2025cs.RO stat.MLcited by 41

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion and flow policies for robotics

Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion generative models have demonstrated remarkable success in visual domains such as image and video generation. They have also recently emerged as a promising approach in robotics, especially in robot manipulations. Diffusion models leverage a probabilistic framework, and they stand out with their ability to model multi-modal distributions and their robustness to high-dimensional input and output spaces. This survey provides a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art diffusion models in robotic manipulation, including grasp learning, trajectory planning, and data augmentation. Diffusion models for scene and image augmentation lie at the intersection of robotics and computer vision for vision-based tasks to enhance generalizability and data scarcity. This paper also presents the two main frameworks of diffusion models and their integration with imitation learning and reinforcement learning. In addition, it discusses the common architectures and benchmarks and points out the challenges and advantages of current state-of-the-art diffusion-based methods.

Key facts. Cited by 41 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for robotics, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 200 of its 229 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Apr 2025.

Builds on

200 of 229 references.

Closest ancestors · 52

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025FlowMP: Learning Motion Fields for Robot Planning with Conditional Flow Matching8 Mar
  2. 2025HGDiffuser: Efficient Task-Oriented Grasp Generation via Human-Guided Grasp Diffusion Models1 Mar
  3. 2024Diffusion Predictive Control with Constraints12 Dec
  4. 2024Grasp Diffusion Network: Learning Grasp Generators from Partial Point Clouds with Diffusion Models in SO(3)xR311 Dec
  5. 2024RDT-1B: a Diffusion Foundation Model for Bimanual Manipulation10 Oct
  6. 2024ManiDext: Hand-Object Manipulation Synthesis via Continuous Correspondence Embeddings and Residual-Guided Diffusion14 Sep
  7. 2024Joint Diffusion for Universal Hand-Object Grasp Generation6 Sep
  8. 2024Affordance-based Robot Manipulation with Flow Matching2 Sep
  9. 2024Diffusion Policy Policy Optimization1 Sep
  10. 2024Diffusion Augmented Agents: A Framework for Efficient Exploration and Transfer Learning30 Jul
  11. 2024ClickDiff: Click to Induce Semantic Contact Map for Controllable Grasp Generation with Diffusion Models28 Jul
  12. 2024Lightweight Language-driven Grasp Detection using Conditional Consistency Model25 Jul
38 more
  1. 2024NL2Contact: Natural Language Guided 3D Hand-Object Contact Modeling with Diffusion Model17 Jul
  2. 2024Multimodal Diffusion Transformer: Learning Versatile Behavior from Multimodal Goals8 Jul
  3. 2024Language-Guided Object-Centric Diffusion Policy for Generalizable and Collision-Aware Robotic Manipulation29 Jun
  4. 2024Language-driven Grasp Detection13 Jun
  5. 2024Consistency Policy: Accelerated Visuomotor Policies via Consistency Distillation13 May
  6. 2024Composable Part-Based Manipulation9 May
  7. 2024G-HOP: Generative Hand-Object Prior for Interaction Reconstruction and Grasp Synthesis18 Apr
  8. 2024Hierarchical Diffusion Policy for Kinematics-Aware Multi-Task Robotic Manipulation6 Mar
  9. 2024Robust Policy Learning via Offline Skill Diffusion1 Mar
  10. 2024Don't Start from Scratch: Behavioral Refinement via Interpolant-based Policy Diffusion25 Feb
  11. 20243D Diffuser Actor: Policy Diffusion with 3D Scene Representations16 Feb
  12. 2024Stitching Sub-Trajectories with Conditional Diffusion Model for Goal-Conditioned Offline RL11 Feb
  13. 2024DexDiffuser: Generating Dexterous Grasps with Diffusion Models5 Feb
  14. 2023Diffusion Reward: Learning Rewards via Conditional Video Diffusion21 Dec
  15. 2023SkillDiffuser: Interpretable Hierarchical Planning via Skill Abstractions in Diffusion-Based Task Execution18 Dec
  16. 2023GraspLDM: Generative 6-DoF Grasp Synthesis using Latent Diffusion Models18 Dec
  17. 2023PlayFusion: Skill Acquisition via Diffusion from Language-Annotated Play7 Dec
  18. 2023LVDiffusor: Distilling Functional Rearrangement Priors from Large Models into Diffusor3 Dec
  19. 2023Zero-Shot Robotic Manipulation with Pretrained Image-Editing Diffusion Models16 Oct
  20. 2023Adaptive Online Replanning with Diffusion Models14 Oct
  21. 2023Generative Skill Chaining: Long-Horizon Skill Planning with Diffusion Models13 Oct
  22. 2023Consistency Models as a Rich and Efficient Policy Class for Reinforcement Learning29 Sep
  23. 2023EDMP: Ensemble-of-costs-guided Diffusion for Motion Planning20 Sep
  24. 2023Reasoning with Latent Diffusion in Offline Reinforcement Learning12 Sep
  25. 2023Diffusion-EDFs: Bi-equivariant Denoising Generative Modeling on SE(3) for Visual Robotic Manipulation6 Sep
  26. 2023Motion Planning Diffusion: Learning and Planning of Robot Motions with Diffusion Models3 Aug
  27. 2023Diffusion Policies for Out-of-Distribution Generalization in Offline Reinforcement Learning10 Jul
  28. 2023Crossway Diffusion: Improving Diffusion-based Visuomotor Policy via Self-supervised Learning4 Jul
  29. 2023Efficient Diffusion Policies for Offline Reinforcement Learning31 May
  30. 2023Goal-Conditioned Imitation Learning using Score-based Diffusion Policies5 Apr
  31. 2023EDGI: Equivariant Diffusion for Planning with Embodied Agents22 Mar
  32. 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion7 Mar
  33. 2023ReorientDiff: Diffusion Model based Reorientation for Object Manipulation28 Feb
  34. 2023AdaptDiffuser: Diffusion Models as Adaptive Self-evolving Planners3 Feb
  35. 2023Imitating Human Behaviour with Diffusion Models25 Jan
  36. 2022Is Conditional Generative Modeling all you need for Decision-Making?28 Nov
  37. 2022StructDiffusion: Language-Guided Creation of Physically-Valid Structures using Unseen Objects8 Nov
  38. 2022DALL-E-Bot: Introducing Web-Scale Diffusion Models to Robotics5 Oct

50 newest of 52 All 52 (JSON)

Other references · 148

  1. 2015Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognitioncited by 52,096
  2. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  3. 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 30,186
  4. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  5. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,713
  6. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  7. 2019Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformercited by 14,599
  8. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,781
  9. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
  10. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,255
  11. 2023Segment Anythingcited by 8,234
  12. 2023DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervisioncited by 7,974
38 more
  1. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,058
  2. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,585
  3. 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 6,054
  4. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,847
  5. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,702
  6. 2022Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,627
  7. 2017PointNet++: Deep Hierarchical Feature Learning on Point Sets in a Metric Spacecited by 4,401
  8. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,101
  9. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 3,761
  10. 2023Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detectioncited by 3,332
  11. 2020Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 3,253
  12. 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 3,080
  13. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Modelscited by 3,045
  14. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,887
  15. 2019DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representationcited by 2,689
  16. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,407
  17. 2017FiLM: Visual Reasoning with a General Conditioning Layercited by 2,333
  18. 2022RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scalecited by 2,061
  19. 2018Occupancy Networks: Learning 3D Reconstruction in Function Spacecited by 2,041
  20. 2022DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Stepscited by 1,979
  21. 2020Offline Reinforcement Learning: Tutorial, Review, and Perspectives on Open Problemscited by 1,920
  22. 2023Consistency Modelscited by 1,822
  23. 2016Generative Adversarial Imitation Learningcited by 1,597
  24. 2017Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real Worldcited by 1,498
  25. 2024Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policycited by 1,484
  26. 2020D4RL: Datasets for Deep Data-Driven Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,427
  27. 2023LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learningcited by 1,410
  28. 2019Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,204
  29. 2017Hindsight Experience Replaycited by 1,136
  30. 2022Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesiscited by 1,061
  31. 2022Diffusion-LM Improves Controllable Text Generationcited by 1,027
  32. 2021Vector Quantized Diffusion Model for Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 774
  33. 2021What Matters in Learning from Offline Human Demonstrations for Robot Manipulationcited by 725
  34. 2017Learning Complex Dexterous Manipulation with Deep Reinforcement Learning and Demonstrationscited by 715
  35. 2019RLBench: The Robot Learning Benchmark & Learning Environmentcited by 689
  36. 2025FAST: Efficient Action Tokenization for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 665
  37. 2023BridgeData V2: A Dataset for Robot Learning at Scalecited by 657
  38. 2021CLIPort: What and Where Pathways for Robotic Manipulationcited by 622

50 most cited of 148 All 148 (JSON)

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 14; 2026: 27.

41 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2025CogVLA: Cognition-Aligned Vision-Language-Action Model via Instruction-Driven Routing & Sparsificationcited by 74
  2. 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Surveycited by 69
  3. 2026OAT: Ordered Action Tokenizationcited by 15
  4. 2025Constraint-Aware Diffusion Guidance for Robotics: Real-Time Obstacle Avoidance for Autonomous Racingcited by 11
  5. 2025DM1: MeanFlow with Dispersive Regularization for 1-Step Robotic Manipulationcited by 8
  6. 2026STEP: Warm-Started Visuomotor Policies with Spatiotemporal Consistency Predictioncited by 7
  7. 2026FlowCorrect: Efficient Interactive Correction of Generative Flow Policies for Robotic Manipulationcited by 7
  8. 2025Interactive Imitation Learning for Dexterous Robotic Manipulation: Challenges and Perspectives -- A Surveycited by 4
  9. 2026CF-VLA: Efficient Coarse-to-Fine Action Generation for Vision-Language-Action Policiescited by 4
  10. 2025Diffusion-Based Impedance Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulation Taskscited by 3
  11. 2025How Well do Diffusion Policies Learn Kinematic Constraint Manifolds?cited by 3
  12. 2025Asynchronous Denoising Diffusion Models for Aligning Text-to-Image Generationcited by 3
29 more
  1. 2025FALCON: Actively Decoupled Visuomotor Policies for Loco-Manipulation with Foundation-Model-Based Coordinationcited by 3
  2. 2026FlowRL: A Taxonomy and Modular Framework for Reinforcement Learning with Diffusion Policiescited by 3
  3. 20263D HAMSTER: Bridging Planning and Control in Hierarchical Vision Language Action Models through 3D Trajectory Guidancecited by 3
  4. 2025Diffusion Models for Reinforcement Learning: Foundations, Taxonomy, and Developmentcited by 2
  5. 2025Who Made This? Fake Detection and Source Attribution with Diffusion Featurescited by 2
  6. 2026RoDiF: Robust Direct Fine-Tuning of Diffusion Policies with Corrupted Human Feedbackcited by 2
  7. 2026Retrieve What's Missing: Coverage-Maximizing Retrieval for Consistent Long Video Generationcited by 2
  8. 2025ArtiBench and ArtiBrain: Benchmarking Generalizable Vision-Language Articulated Object Manipulationcited by 1
  9. 2026ForeDiffusion: Foresight-Conditioned Diffusion Policy via Future View Construction for Robot Manipulationcited by 1
  10. 2026HumanDiffusion: A Vision-Based Diffusion Trajectory Planner with Human-Conditioned Goals for Search and Rescue UAVcited by 1
  11. 2026Encoding Predictability and Legibility for Style-Conditioned Diffusion Policycited by 1
  12. 2026Understanding the Theoretical Foundations of Deep Neural Networks through Differential Equationscited by 1
  13. 2026OGPO: Sample Efficient Full-Finetuning of Generative Control Policiescited by 1
  14. 2026MIND: Multi-Scale Intent Diffusion for Text-Driven Physics-Based Humanoid Controlcited by 1
  15. 2026WorldAgen: Unified State-Action Prediction with Test-Time World Model Trainingcited by 1
  16. 2025SoccerDiffusion: Toward Learning End-to-End Humanoid Robot Soccer from Gameplay Recordingscited by 0
  17. 2025Controlling Intent Expressiveness in Robot Motion with Diffusion Modelscited by 0
  18. 2026Recovering Hidden Reward in Diffusion-Based Policiescited by 0
  19. 2026Muninn: Your Trajectory Diffusion Model But Fastercited by 0
  20. 2026Twincher: Bijective Representation Learning for Robust Inversion of Continuous Systemscited by 0
  21. 2026From Denoising to Decision Making: A Survey on Diffusion Model-Enabled Deep Reinforcement Learning for Wireless Networkscited by 0
  22. 2026From Noise to Control: Parameterized Diffusion Policiescited by 0
  23. 2026IMPACT: Learning Internal-Model Predictive Control for Forceful Robotic Manipulationcited by 0
  24. 2026THREAD: Trajectory Planning for Hybrid Rigid-Soft Manipulators with Environment-Aware Diffusioncited by 0
  25. 2026PAC-DP: PAC-Bayesian Diffusion Policy Learningcited by 0
  26. 2026A Hierarchical Approach to Imitation Learning for Manipulation Tasks Requiring Time Varying Forcescited by 0
  27. 2026DROM: A Language-Guided Diffusion Framework for Multi-Skill Robotic Manipulationcited by 0
  28. 2026DSDyn-VLA: A Dual-Stream Dynamic Manipulation Framework with Motion Perception, Future Awareness, and Realtime Correctioncited by 0
  29. 2026Adaptive Mean Flow for Responsive Closed-Loop Robot Controlcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025DiffusionRL: Efficient Training of Diffusion Policies for Robotic Grasping Using RL-Adapted Large-Scale Datasets
  2. 2025Latent Diffusion Planning for Imitation Learning
  3. 2025Two-Steps Diffusion Policy for Robotic Manipulation via Genetic Denoising
  4. 2024Deep Generative Models in Robotics: A Survey on Learning from Multimodal Demonstrations
  5. 2024ManiCM: Real-time 3D Diffusion Policy via Consistency Model for Robotic Manipulation
  6. 2024Hierarchical Diffusion Policy: manipulation trajectory generation via contact guidance
  7. 2024Learning Diffusion Policies from Demonstrations For Compliant Contact-rich Manipulation
  8. 2024M2Diffuser: Diffusion-based Trajectory Optimization for Mobile Manipulation in 3D Scenes