Fisher-Preserving Guidance: Training-Free Manifold Constraints for Safe Diffusion Control
On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion and flow policies for robotics
Abstract (arXiv)
Diffusion models are effective for waypoint prediction in visual navigation, but standard sampling and test time guidance can produce unreliable or inefficient trajectories when updates drift off the training manifold. We propose Fisher Preserving Guidance with Outer Product Span Projection, a training-free inference method that avoids large Fisher drift associated with off-distribution actions while optimizing a task objective. Our method computes the Fisher-preserving update via a low-rank Jacobian factorization, requiring only a single backward pass per step and enabling real-time use. We further introduce Truncated Fisher Denoising Sensitivity as an uncertainty signal and use it for robust multi-sample action blending. Experiments on toy and realistic navigation benchmarks, including Maze2D with TSDF-based guidance, PushT with official Diffusion Policy weights, and visual navigation in simulation and on real robots, demonstrate consistent improvements in performance over strong diffusion-policy baselines without additional training.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for robotics, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 40 of its 54 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 May 2026.
Builds on
40 of 54 references.
Closest ancestors · 5
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Prior Does Matter: Visual Navigation via Denoising Diffusion Bridge Models14 Apr
- 2025NaviDiffusor: Cost-Guided Diffusion Model for Visual Navigation14 Apr
- 2025GoalFlow: Goal-Driven Flow Matching for Multimodal Trajectories Generation in End-to-End Autonomous Driving7 Mar
- 2023NoMaD: Goal Masked Diffusion Policies for Navigation and Exploration11 Oct
- 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion7 Mar
Other references · 35
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,781
- 2015Dropout as a Bayesian Approximation: Representing Model Uncertainty in Deep Learningcited by 4,448
- 2017What Uncertainties Do We Need in Bayesian Deep Learning for Computer Vision?cited by 2,352
- 2022Planning-oriented Autonomous Drivingcited by 1,087
- 2022Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesiscited by 1,061
- 2016Target-driven Visual Navigation in Indoor Scenes using Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 366
- 2023NavGPT: Explicit Reasoning in Vision-and-Language Navigation with Large Language Modelscited by 280
- 2023ViNT: A Foundation Model for Visual Navigationcited by 222
- 2018Semi-parametric Topological Memory for Navigationcited by 209
- 2022ZSON: Zero-Shot Object-Goal Navigation using Multimodal Goal Embeddingscited by 178
- 2022GNM: A General Navigation Model to Drive Any Robotcited by 171
- 2023Manifold Preserving Guided Diffusioncited by 157
23 more
- 2020Can Autonomous Vehicles Identify, Recover From, and Adapt to Distribution Shifts?cited by 139
- 2022Socially Compliant Navigation Dataset (SCAND): A Large-Scale Dataset of Demonstrations for Social Navigationcited by 127
- 2021Rapid Exploration for Open-World Navigation with Latent Goal Modelscited by 121
- 2020Topological Planning with Transformers for Vision-and-Language Navigationcited by 116
- 2024Guidance with Spherical Gaussian Constraint for Conditional Diffusioncited by 71
- 2022Zero Experience Required: Plug & Play Modular Transfer Learning for Semantic Visual Navigationcited by 67
- 2023SACSoN: Scalable Autonomous Control for Social Navigationcited by 61
- 2024GRUtopia: Dream General Robots in a City at Scalecited by 59
- 2023Uncertainty Estimation by Fisher Information-based Evidential Deep Learningcited by 58
- 2019Deep Visual MPC-Policy Learning for Navigationcited by 56
- 2023Improved Techniques for Maximum Likelihood Estimation for Diffusion ODEscited by 54
- 2021Curious Representation Learning for Embodied Intelligencecited by 44
- 2023BayesDiff: Estimating Pixel-wise Uncertainty in Diffusion via Bayesian Inferencecited by 35
- 2020Learning to plan with uncertain topological mapscited by 29
- 2023Fast-Slow Test-Time Adaptation for Online Vision-and-Language Navigationcited by 25
- 2025Latent Policy Barrier: Learning Robust Visuomotor Policies by Staying In-Distributioncited by 25
- 2024VLN-Video: Utilizing Driving Videos for Outdoor Vision-and-Language Navigationcited by 14
- 2025Efficiently Access Diffusion Fisher: Within the Outer Product Span Spacecited by 5
- 2019NeoNav: Improving the Generalization of Visual Navigation via Generating Next Expected Observationscited by 2
- 2025GET: Goal-directed Exploration and Targeting for Large-Scale Unknown Environmentscited by 2
- 2026STRNet: Visual Navigation with Spatio-Temporal Representation through Dynamic Graph Aggregationcited by 2
- 2024Improving Training-free Conditional Diffusion Model via Fisher Informationcited by 1
- 2025Sim-to-Real Dynamic Object Manipulation on Conveyor Systems via Optimization Path Shapingcited by 1
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- 2026AR Forcing: Towards Long-Horizon Robot Navigation World Model
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- 2024Joint Localization and Planning using Diffusion
- 2025Exploration and Adaptation in Non-Stationary Tasks with Diffusion Policies
- 2026MOSAIC: Mode- and Support-Aware Inference-Time Control of Robot Diffusion Models
- 2025Belief-Conditioned One-Step Diffusion: Real-Time Trajectory Planning with Just-Enough Sensing
- 2024Versatile Navigation under Partial Observability via Value-guided Diffusion Policy