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Abstract In this study, we developed an offline, hierarchical intent recognition system for inferring the timing and direction of motion intent of a human operator when operating in an unstructured environment. There has been an increasing demand for robot agents to assist in these dynamic, rapid motions that are constantly evolving and require quick, accurate estimation of a user’s direction of travel. An experiment was conducted in a motion capture space with six subjects performing threat evasion in eight directions, and their mechanical and neuromuscular signals were recorded for use in our intent recognition system (XGBoost). Investigated against current, analytical methods, our system demonstrated superior performance with quicker direction of travel estimation occurring 140 ms earlier in the movement and a 11.6 deg reduction of error. The results showed that we could also predict the start of the movement 100 ms prior to the actual, thus allowing any physical systems to start up. Our direction estimation had an optimal performance of 8.8 deg, or 2.4% of the 360 deg range of travel, using three-axis kinetic data. The performance of other sensors and their combinations indicate that there are additional possibilities to obtain low estimation error. These findings are promising as they can be used to inform the design of a wearable robot aimed at assisting users in dynamic motions, while in environments with oncoming threats.