Efficient Trajectory Forecasting and Generation with Conditional Flow Matching

Abstract

Trajectory prediction and generation are crucial for autonomous robots in dynamic environments. While prior research has typically focused on either prediction or generation, our approach unifies these tasks to provide a versatile framework and achieve state-of-the-art performance. While diffusion models excel in trajectory generation, their iterative sampling process is computationally intensive, hindering robotic systems' dynamic capabilities. We introduce Trajectory Conditional Flow Matching (T-CFM), a novel approach using flow matching techniques to learn a solver time-varying vector field for efficient, fast trajectory generation. T-CFM demonstrates effectiveness in adversarial tracking, real-world aircraft trajectory forecasting, and long-horizon planning, outperforming state-of-the-art baselines with 35% higher predictive accuracy and 142% improved planning performance. Crucially, T-CFM achieves up to 100$\times$ speed-up compared to diffusion models without sacrificing accuracy, enabling real-time decision making in robotics. Codebase: https://github.com/CORE-Robotics-Lab/TCFM