mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Compositional Visual Planning via Inference-Time Diffusion Scaling

arXiv 2603.02646 ↗First posted 3 Mar 2026cs.ROcited by 2

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models excel at short-horizon robot planning, yet scaling them to long-horizon tasks remains challenging due to computational constraints and limited training data. Existing compositional approaches stitch together short segments by separately denoising each component and averaging overlapping regions. However, this suffers from instability as the factorization assumption breaks down in noisy data space, leading to inconsistent global plans. We propose that the key to stable compositional generation lies in enforcing boundary agreement on the estimated clean data (Tweedie estimates) rather than on noisy intermediate states. Our method formulates long-horizon planning as inference over a chain-structured factor graph of overlapping video chunks, where pretrained short-horizon video diffusion models provide local priors. At inference time, we enforce boundary agreement through a novel combination of synchronous and asynchronous message passing that operates on Tweedie estimates, producing globally consistent guidance without requiring additional training. Our training-free framework demonstrates significant improvements over existing baselines, effectively generalizing to unseen start-goal combinations that were not present in the original training data. Project website: https://comp-visual-planning.github.io/

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 64 of its 70 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 3 Mar 2026.

Builds on

64 of 70 references.

Closest ancestors · 21

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025BeyondMimic: From Motion Tracking to Versatile Humanoid Control via Guided Diffusion11 Aug
  2. 2025DynaGuide: Steering Diffusion Polices with Active Dynamic Guidance16 Jun
  3. 2025Latent Diffusion Planning for Imitation Learning23 Apr
  4. 2025Generative Trajectory Stitching through Diffusion Composition7 Mar
  5. 2025What Makes a Good Diffusion Planner for Decision Making?1 Mar
  6. 2025Monte Carlo Tree Diffusion for System 2 Planning11 Feb
  7. 2024Motion Planning Diffusion: Learning and Adapting Robot Motion Planning with Diffusion Models27 Dec
  8. 2024Multi-Robot Motion Planning with Diffusion Models4 Oct
  9. 2024Diffusion Model for Planning: A Systematic Literature Review16 Aug
  10. 2024ARDuP: Active Region Video Diffusion for Universal Policies19 Jun
  11. 2024Simple Hierarchical Planning with Diffusion5 Jan
  12. 2023Refining Diffusion Planner for Reliable Behavior Synthesis by Automatic Detection of Infeasible Plans30 Oct
9 more
  1. 2023Generative Skill Chaining: Long-Horizon Skill Planning with Diffusion Models13 Oct
  2. 2023AlignDiff: Aligning Diverse Human Preferences via Behavior-Customisable Diffusion Model3 Oct
  3. 2023DiMSam: Diffusion Models as Samplers for Task and Motion Planning under Partial Observability22 Jun
  4. 2023Diffusion Model is an Effective Planner and Data Synthesizer for Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning29 May
  5. 2023MADiff: Offline Multi-agent Learning with Diffusion Models27 May
  6. 2023AdaptDiffuser: Diffusion Models as Adaptive Self-evolving Planners3 Feb
  7. 2023Imitating Human Behaviour with Diffusion Models25 Jan
  8. 2022Is Conditional Generative Modeling all you need for Decision-Making?28 Nov
  9. 2022Diffusion Policies as an Expressive Policy Class for Offline Reinforcement Learning12 Aug

Other references · 43

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  2. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  3. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  4. 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 5,931
  5. 2015ShapeNet: An Information-Rich 3D Model Repositorycited by 2,880
  6. 2022Diffusion Posterior Sampling for General Noisy Inverse Problemscited by 1,375
  7. 2022Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesiscited by 1,023
  8. 2025Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AIcited by 833
  9. 2024Diffusion Forcing: Next-token Prediction Meets Full-Sequence Diffusioncited by 634
  10. 2022Compositional Visual Generation with Composable Diffusion Modelscited by 619
  11. 2020SAPIEN: A SimulAted Part-based Interactive ENvironmentcited by 584
  12. 2023MultiDiffusion: Fusing Diffusion Paths for Controlled Image Generationcited by 529
31 more
  1. 2023TD-MPC2: Scalable, Robust World Models for Continuous Controlcited by 482
  2. 2023Universal Guidance for Diffusion Modelscited by 426
  3. 2024RoboCasa: Large-Scale Simulation of Everyday Tasks for Generalist Robotscited by 391
  4. 2023FreeDoM: Training-Free Energy-Guided Conditional Diffusion Modelcited by 290
  5. 2025Real-Time Execution of Action Chunking Flow Policiescited by 199
  6. 2021ManiSkill: Generalizable Manipulation Skill Benchmark with Large-Scale Demonstrationscited by 193
  7. 2023Manifold Preserving Guided Diffusioncited by 153
  8. 2023Gen-L-Video: Multi-Text to Long Video Generation via Temporal Co-Denoisingcited by 135
  9. 2024FIFO-Diffusion: Generating Infinite Videos from Text without Trainingcited by 134
  10. 2023SyncDiffusion: Coherent Montage via Synchronized Joint Diffusionscited by 108
  11. 2024TFG: Unified Training-Free Guidance for Diffusion Modelscited by 103
  12. 2023DiffCollage: Parallel Generation of Large Content with Diffusion Modelscited by 100
  13. 2023Compositional Abilities Emerge Multiplicatively: Exploring Diffusion Models on a Synthetic Taskcited by 91
  14. 2024Guidance with Spherical Gaussian Constraint for Conditional Diffusioncited by 69
  15. 2024Compositional Generative Modeling: A Single Model is Not All You Needcited by 41
  16. 2024DiffuserLite: Towards Real-time Diffusion Planningcited by 40
  17. 2024Potential Based Diffusion Motion Planningcited by 40
  18. 2023Compositional Diffusion-Based Continuous Constraint Solverscited by 39
  19. 2024EnergyMoGen: Compositional Human Motion Generation with Energy-Based Diffusion Model in Latent Spacecited by 30
  20. 2023Compositional Sculpting of Iterative Generative Processescited by 26
  21. 2024SyncTweedies: A General Generative Framework Based on Synchronized Diffusionscited by 26
  22. 2025Composition and Control with Distilled Energy Diffusion Models and Sequential Monte Carlocited by 18
  23. 2024LTLDoG: Satisfying Temporally-Extended Symbolic Constraints for Safe Diffusion-based Planningcited by 15
  24. 2024Resisting Stochastic Risks in Diffusion Planners with the Trajectory Aggregation Treecited by 13
  25. 2024Compositional Risk Minimizationcited by 13
  26. 2025Mechanisms of Projective Composition of Diffusion Modelscited by 13
  27. 2021A visual introduction to Gaussian Belief Propagationcited by 12
  28. 2024Generative Factor Chaining: Coordinated Manipulation with Diffusion-based Factor Graphcited by 12
  29. 2024Reward-free World Models for Online Imitation Learningcited by 7
  30. 2025VILP: Imitation Learning with Latent Video Planningcited by 6
  31. 2025Tuning-Free Multi-Event Long Video Generation via Synchronized Coupled Samplingcited by 6

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025RoboEnvision: A Long-Horizon Video Generation Model for Multi-Task Robot Manipulation
  2. 2026Structured 4D Latent Predictive Model for Robot Planning
  3. 2026H-JEPA: End-to-End Learning of Hierarchical World Models for Visual Planning
  4. 2025Multi-Robot Motion Planning from Vision and Language using Heat-Inspired Diffusion
  5. 2025Exploration and Adaptation in Non-Stationary Tasks with Diffusion Policies
  6. 2023Motion Planning Diffusion: Learning and Planning of Robot Motions with Diffusion Models
  7. 2026Thinking in Frames: How Visual Context and Test-Time Scaling Empower Video Reasoning
  8. 2023Compositional Foundation Models for Hierarchical Planning