mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Intention-Aware Diffusion Model for Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction

arXiv 2508.07146 ↗First posted 10 Aug 2025cs.CV cs.AIcited by 2

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Predicting pedestrian motion trajectories is critical for the path planning and motion control of autonomous vehicles. Recent diffusion-based models have shown promising results in capturing the inherent stochasticity of pedestrian behavior for trajectory prediction. However, the absence of explicit semantic modelling of pedestrian intent in many diffusion-based methods may result in misinterpreted behaviors and reduced prediction accuracy. To address the above challenges, we propose a diffusion-based pedestrian trajectory prediction framework that incorporates both short-term and long-term motion intentions. Short-term intent is modelled using a residual polar representation, which decouples direction and magnitude to capture fine-grained local motion patterns. Long-term intent is estimated through a learnable, token-based endpoint predictor that generates multiple candidate goals with associated probabilities, enabling multimodal and context-aware intention modelling. Furthermore, we enhance the diffusion process by incorporating adaptive guidance and a residual noise predictor that dynamically refines denoising accuracy. The proposed framework is evaluated on the widely used ETH, UCY, and SDD benchmarks, demonstrating competitive results against state-of-the-art methods.

Key facts. Cited by 2 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 26 of its 38 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Aug 2025.

Builds on

26 of 38 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023DICE: Diverse Diffusion Model with Scoring for Trajectory Prediction23 Oct
  2. 2023Trace and Pace: Controllable Pedestrian Animation via Guided Trajectory Diffusion4 Apr
  3. 2023Leapfrog Diffusion Model for Stochastic Trajectory Prediction20 Mar

Other references · 23

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  2. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,058
  3. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 3,761
  4. 2022Diffusion-LM Improves Controllable Text Generationcited by 1,027
  5. 2018Social GAN: Socially Acceptable Trajectories with Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 690
  6. 2020TNT: Target-driveN Trajectory Predictioncited by 347
  7. 2020Social-STGCNN: A Social Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Neural Network for Human Trajectory Predictioncited by 325
  8. 2018SoPhie: An Attentive GAN for Predicting Paths Compliant to Social and Physical Constraintscited by 298
  9. 2021DenseTNT: End-to-end Trajectory Prediction from Dense Goal Setscited by 295
  10. 2020It Is Not the Journey but the Destination: Endpoint Conditioned Trajectory Predictioncited by 236
  11. 2022SocialVAE: Human Trajectory Prediction using Timewise Latentscited by 67
  12. 2023ProphNet: Efficient Agent-Centric Motion Forecasting with Anchor-Informed Proposalscited by 48
11 more
  1. 2021Three Steps to Multimodal Trajectory Prediction: Modality Clustering, Classification and Synthesiscited by 46
  2. 2021Interpretable Social Anchors for Human Trajectory Forecasting in Crowdscited by 44
  3. 2023EigenTrajectory: Low-Rank Descriptors for Multi-Modal Trajectory Forecastingcited by 41
  4. 2022Goal-driven Self-Attentive Recurrent Networks for Trajectory Predictioncited by 29
  5. 2022SMEMO: Social Memory for Trajectory Forecastingcited by 26
  6. 2024Progressive Pretext Task Learning for Human Trajectory Predictioncited by 16
  7. 2025Minds on the Move: Decoding Trajectory Prediction in Autonomous Driving with Cognitive Insightscited by 10
  8. 2020Path Planning in Dynamic Environments using Generative RNNs and Monte Carlo Tree Searchcited by 9
  9. 2024C2F-TP: A Coarse-to-Fine Denoising Framework for Uncertainty-Aware Trajectory Predictioncited by 9
  10. 2020Attentional-GCNN: Adaptive Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction towards Generic Autonomous Vehicle Use Casescited by 7
  11. 2023Trajectory Prediction for Robot Navigation using Flow-Guided Markov Neural Operatorcited by 6

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

  1. 2026MUSCLE-NET: Predicted-Multiscale-Aware Network for Pedestrian Trajectory Forecastingcited by 0
  2. 2026GEAR: From Dynamic Encoding to Dynamic Activation in Social Trajectory Predictioncited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Intention Enhanced Diffusion Model for Multimodal Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction
  2. 2024Intention-aware Denoising Diffusion Model for Trajectory Prediction
  3. 2025Diffusion^2: Dual Diffusion Model with Uncertainty-Aware Adaptive Noise for Momentary Trajectory Prediction
  4. 2025Occlusion-Aware Diffusion Model for Pedestrian Intention Prediction
  5. 2022Stochastic Trajectory Prediction via Motion Indeterminacy Diffusion
  6. 2024Uncovering the human motion pattern: Pattern Memory-based Diffusion Model for Trajectory Prediction
  7. 2023GDTS: Goal-Guided Diffusion Model with Tree Sampling for Multi-Modal Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction
  8. 2024TrajDiffuse: A Conditional Diffusion Model for Environment-Aware Trajectory Prediction