mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

FlowS: One-Step Motion Prediction via Local Transport Conditioning

arXiv 2604.26065 ↗First posted 28 Apr 2026cs.ROcited by 0

On the map: Diffusion models → Flow matching, time series and science

Abstract (arXiv)

Generative motion prediction must satisfy three simultaneous requirements for real-world autonomy: high accuracy, diverse multimodal futures, and strictly bounded latency. Diffusion models meet the first two but violate the third, requiring tens to hundreds of denoising steps. We identify a conditioning strategy that resolves this tension: textitsingle-step integration is accurate when the underlying transport problem is local. A model that must both discover the correct behavioral mode and traverse a long displacement in one step accumulates large discretization errors; conditioning the base distribution to lie near plausible futures reduces the problem to short-range refinement, the regime where a single Euler step suffices. We instantiate this local transport conditioning in FlowS, a conditional flow matching framework with two mechanisms. First, an online, scene-conditioned learned prior emits K calibrated anchor trajectories per agent, each already near a plausible future, converting mode discovery into local correction. Second, a step-consistent displacement field enforces semigroup self-consistency, guaranteeing that a single step inherits multi-step accuracy. Crucially, anchoring this field at learned priors along straight-line paths yields a stable, low-variance training target, unlike prior self-consistency methods that suffer from high-variance bootstrap signals on curved diffusion paths. On the Waymo Open Motion Dataset, FlowS achieves state-of-the-art Soft mAP (0.4804) and mAP (0.4703) with ensemble at 75,FPS with single-step inference, demonstrating that local transport conditioning makes one-step generative motion prediction practical for safety-critical autonomy. Code and pretrained models will be released upon acceptance.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Flow matching, time series and science, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 29 of its 33 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Apr 2026.

Builds on

29 of 33 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Consistency Flow Matching: Defining Straight Flows with Velocity Consistency2 Jul
  2. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modeling6 Oct
  3. 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flow7 Sep

Other references · 26

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  2. 2017FiLM: Visual Reasoning with a General Conditioning Layercited by 2,286
  3. 2024One Step Diffusion via Shortcut Modelscited by 373
  4. 2024DiffusionDrive: Truncated Diffusion Model for End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 324
  5. 2022Wayformer: Motion Forecasting via Simple & Efficient Attention Networkscited by 279
  6. 2022Motion Transformer with Global Intention Localization and Local Movement Refinementcited by 267
  7. 2023MotionDiffuser: Controllable Multi-Agent Motion Prediction using Diffusioncited by 210
  8. 2022Stochastic Trajectory Prediction via Motion Indeterminacy Diffusioncited by 184
  9. 2023Denoising Diffusion Bridge Modelscited by 171
  10. 2023MotionLM: Multi-Agent Motion Forecasting as Language Modelingcited by 154
  11. 2023MTR++: Multi-Agent Motion Prediction with Symmetric Scene Modeling and Guided Intention Queryingcited by 139
  12. 2023Leapfrog Diffusion Model for Stochastic Trajectory Predictioncited by 129
14 more
  1. 2025GoalFlow: Goal-Driven Flow Matching for Multimodal Trajectories Generation in End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 117
  2. 2022HDGT: Heterogeneous Driving Graph Transformer for Multi-Agent Trajectory Prediction via Scene Encodingcited by 109
  3. 2023Real-Time Motion Prediction via Heterogeneous Polyline Transformer with Relative Pose Encodingcited by 32
  4. 2024Reasoning Multi-Agent Behavioral Topology for Interactive Autonomous Drivingcited by 27
  5. 2025Scenario Dreamer: Vectorized Latent Diffusion for Generating Driving Simulation Environmentscited by 27
  6. 2023EDA: Evolving and Distinct Anchors for Multimodal Motion Predictioncited by 17
  7. 2025BridgeDrive: Diffusion Bridge Policy for Closed-Loop Trajectory Planning in Autonomous Drivingcited by 17
  8. 2023MGTR: Multi-Granular Transformer for Motion Prediction with LiDARcited by 9
  9. 2024ModeSeq: Taming Sparse Multimodal Motion Prediction with Sequential Mode Modelingcited by 7
  10. 2025TrajFlow: Multi-modal Motion Prediction via Flow Matchingcited by 7
  11. 2024RMP-YOLO: A Robust Motion Predictor for Partially Observable Scenarios even if You Only Look Oncecited by 6
  12. 2025IMPACT: Behavioral Intention-aware Multimodal Trajectory Prediction with Adaptive Context Trimmingcited by 5
  13. 2025FlowDrive: Energy Flow Field for End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 4
  14. 2025FlowDrive: moderated flow matching with data balancing for trajectory planningcited by 3

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  1. 2025FlowMP: Learning Motion Fields for Robot Planning with Conditional Flow Matching
  2. 2026A Kinetic Energy Perspective of Flow Matching
  3. 2025Theoretical Guarantees for High Order Trajectory Refinement in Generative Flows
  4. 2026Path-independent Flow Matching for Multi-parameter Generative Dynamics
  5. 2026VTV-FM: Flow Matching through Variational Terminal-Velocity Closure
  6. 2025Streaming Flow Policy: Simplifying diffusion/flow-matching policies by treating action trajectories as flow trajectories
  7. 2026Look-Ahead and Look-Back Flows: Training-Free Image Generation with Trajectory Smoothing
  8. 2026Flow-Matched Motion Priors: Online Optimal-Transport Rewards for Imitation Learning