Model-Based Diffusion Sampling for Predictive Control in Offline Decision Making
On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion and flow policies for robotics
Abstract (arXiv)
Offline decision-making via diffusion models often produces trajectories that are misaligned with system dynamics, limiting their reliability for control. We propose Model Predictive Diffuser (MPDiffuser), a compositional diffusion framework that combines a diffusion planner with a dynamics diffusion model to generate task-aligned and dynamically plausible trajectories. MPDiffuser interleaves planner and dynamics updates during sampling, progressively correcting feasibility while preserving task intent. A lightweight ranking module then selects trajectories that best satisfy task objectives. The compositional design improves sample efficiency and adaptability by enabling the dynamics model to leverage diverse and previously unseen data independently of the planner. Empirically, we demonstrate consistent improvements over prior diffusion-based methods on unconstrained (D4RL) and constrained (DSRL) benchmarks, and validate practicality through deployment on a real quadrupedal robot.
Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for robotics, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 51 of its 69 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Dec 2025.
Builds on
51 of 69 references.
Closest ancestors · 16
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Constrained Diffusers for Safe Planning and Control14 Jun
- 2025Latent Diffusion Planning for Imitation Learning23 Apr
- 2025Diffuse-CLoC: Guided Diffusion for Physics-based Character Look-ahead Control14 Mar
- 2025Generative Trajectory Stitching through Diffusion Composition7 Mar
- 2024Diffusion Predictive Control with Constraints12 Dec
- 2024Diffusion Model Predictive Control7 Oct
- 2023Motion Planning Diffusion: Learning and Planning of Robot Motions with Diffusion Models3 Aug
- 2023SafeDiffuser: Safe Planning with Diffusion Probabilistic Models31 May
- 2023Diffusion Model is an Effective Planner and Data Synthesizer for Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning29 May
- 2023Contrastive Energy Prediction for Exact Energy-Guided Diffusion Sampling in Offline Reinforcement Learning25 Apr
- 2023IDQL: Implicit Q-Learning as an Actor-Critic Method with Diffusion Policies20 Apr
- 2023Goal-Conditioned Imitation Learning using Score-based Diffusion Policies5 Apr
4 more
- 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion7 Mar
- 2023Imitating Human Behaviour with Diffusion Models25 Jan
- 2022Is Conditional Generative Modeling all you need for Decision-Making?28 Nov
- 2022Diffusion Policies as an Expressive Policy Class for Offline Reinforcement Learning12 Aug
Other references · 35
- 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 36,960
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
- 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 14,441
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
- 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
- 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
- 2018Soft Actor-Critic: Off-Policy Maximum Entropy Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Stochastic Actorcited by 4,635
- 2018Neural Ordinary Differential Equationscited by 3,733
- 2017FiLM: Visual Reasoning with a General Conditioning Layercited by 2,286
- 2020Conservative Q-Learning for Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,777
- 2016Concrete Problems in AI Safetycited by 1,582
- 2021Decision Transformer: Reinforcement Learning via Sequence Modelingcited by 1,528
23 more
- 2018Group Normalizationcited by 1,514
- 2018World Modelscited by 1,444
- 2020D4RL: Datasets for Deep Data-Driven Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,406
- 2020DiffWave: A Versatile Diffusion Model for Audio Synthesiscited by 1,339
- 2018Off-Policy Deep Reinforcement Learning without Explorationcited by 1,227
- 2022Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesiscited by 1,023
- 2017Constrained Policy Optimizationcited by 928
- 2019Hamiltonian Neural Networkscited by 702
- 2024Diffusion Forcing: Next-token Prediction Meets Full-Sequence Diffusioncited by 634
- 2018Reward Constrained Policy Optimizationcited by 397
- 2020Lagrangian Neural Networkscited by 388
- 2021COMBO: Conservative Offline Model-Based Policy Optimizationcited by 365
- 2019Reinforcement Learning in Healthcare: A Surveycited by 308
- 2023Orbit: A Unified Simulation Framework for Interactive Robot Learning Environmentscited by 239
- 2022A Survey on Offline Reinforcement Learning: Taxonomy, Review, and Open Problemscited by 228
- 2021Constraints Penalized Q-learning for Safe Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 90
- 2022COptiDICE: Offline Constrained Reinforcement Learning via Stationary Distribution Correction Estimationcited by 69
- 2023Constrained Decision Transformer for Offline Safe Reinforcement Learningcited by 65
- 2023Datasets and Benchmarks for Offline Safe Reinforcement Learningcited by 58
- 2018Learning an Approximate Model Predictive Controller with Guaranteescited by 54
- 2017A Wavenet for Speech Denoisingcited by 47
- 2018Fast Policy Learning through Imitation and Reinforcementcited by 26
- 2024Toward Near-Globally Optimal Nonlinear Model Predictive Control via Diffusion Modelscited by 8
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 1.
2 papers.
Similar, not cited
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- 2025Dynamics-aware Diffusion Models for Planning and Control
- 2024Model-Based Diffusion for Trajectory Optimization
- 2025CCDP: Composition of Conditional Diffusion Policies with Guided Sampling
- 2026Guided Discovery of New Behaviors using Diffusion Policies
- 2025Prior-Guided Diffusion Planning for Offline Reinforcement Learning