Topological Motion Planning Diffusion: Generative Tangle-Free Path Planning for Tethered Robots in Obstacle-Rich Environments

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.26696v1
• Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:35:17 GMT
• Title: Topological Motion Planning Diffusion: Generative Tangle-Free Path Planning for Tethered Robots in Obstacle-Rich Environments
• Abstract summary: Topological Motion Planning Diffusion (TMPD) is a novel generative planning framework that integrates lifelong topological memory.<n>TMPD achieves a collision-free reach of 100% and a tangle-free rate of 97.0%, outperforming traditional topological search and purely kinematic diffusion baselines.
• Score: 3.778041910428629
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: In extreme environments such as underwater exploration and post-disaster rescue, tethered robots require continuous navigation while avoiding cable entanglement. Traditional planners struggle in these lifelong planning scenarios due to topological unawareness, while topology-augmented graph-search methods face computational bottlenecks in obstacle-rich environments where the number of candidate topological classes increases. To address these challenges, we propose Topological Motion Planning Diffusion (TMPD), a novel generative planning framework that integrates lifelong topological memory. Instead of relying on sequential graph search, TMPD leverages a diffusion model to propose a multimodal front-end of kinematically feasible trajectory candidates across various homotopy classes. A tether-aware topological back-end then filters and optimizes these candidates by computing generalized winding numbers to evaluate their topological energy against the accumulated tether configuration. Benchmarking in obstacle-rich simulated environments demonstrates that TMPD achieves a collision-free reach of 100% and a tangle-free rate of 97.0%, outperforming traditional topological search and purely kinematic diffusion baselines in both geometric smoothness and computational efficiency. Simulation with realistic cable dynamics further validates the practicality of the proposed approach.

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