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Related papers: Multi-Layered Safety for Legged Robots via Control…

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In this paper, a safety-critical control strategy for a nonholonomic robot is developed to generate control signals that result in optimal, obstacle-free paths through dynamic environments. We formulate the control synthesis problem as an…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-03-04 Nhat Nguyen Minh , Stephen McIlvanna , Yuzhu Sun , Yan Jin , Mien Van

In this paper, we present a controller framework that synthesizes control policies for Jump Markov Linear Systems subject to stochastic mode switches and imperfect mode estimation. Our approach builds on safe and robust methods for Model…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-17 Zakariya Laouar , Qi Heng Ho , Rayan Mazouz , Tyler Becker , Zachary N. Sunberg

Over the decades, kinematic controllers have proven to be practically useful for applications like set-point and trajectory tracking in robotic systems. To this end, we formulate a novel safety-critical paradigm for kinematic control in…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-09-22 Andrew Singletary , Shishir Kolathaya , Aaron D. Ames

Safety concerns during the operation of legged robots must be addressed to enable their widespread use. Machine learning-based control methods that use model-based constraints provide promising means to improve robot safety. This study…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-07 Berk Tosun , Evren Samur

Safety has been of paramount importance in motion planning and control techniques and is an active area of research in the past few years. Most safety research for mobile robots target at maintaining safety with the notion of collision…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-08-05 Manas Gupta , Xuesu Xiao

Recent advances in quadrupedal locomotion have focused on improving stability and performance across diverse environments. However, existing methods often lack adequate safety analysis and struggle to adapt to varying payloads and complex…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-11-07 Ananya Trivedi , Sarvesh Prajapati , Mark Zolotas , Michael Everett , Taskin Padir

This paper presents a general end-to-end framework for constructing robust and reliable layered safety filters that can be leveraged to perform dynamic collision avoidance over a broad range of applications using only local perception data.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Erina Yamaguchi , Ryan M. Bena , Gilbert Bahati , Aaron D. Ames

Dynamic locomotion in rough terrain requires accurate foot placement, collision avoidance, and planning of the underactuated dynamics of the system. Reliably optimizing for such motions and interactions in the presence of imperfect and…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-08-18 Ruben Grandia , Fabian Jenelten , Shaohui Yang , Farbod Farshidian , Marco Hutter

This paper presents a novel hierarchical, safety-critical control framework that integrates distributed nonlinear model predictive controllers (DNMPCs) with control barrier functions (CBFs) to enable cooperative locomotion of multi-agent…

Safe motion planning is essential for autonomous vessel operations, especially in challenging spaces such as narrow inland waterways. However, conventional motion planning approaches are often computationally intensive or overly…

Collision avoidance is a widely investigated topic in robotic applications. When applying collision avoidance techniques to a mobile robot, how to deal with the spatial structure of the robot still remains a challenge. In this paper, we…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-05-10 Fan Ding , Han Wang , Jianping He , Yi Ren , Yu Zheng

Autonomous navigation through unstructured and dynamically-changing environments is a complex task that continues to present many challenges for modern roboticists. In particular, legged robots typically possess manipulable asymmetric…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-08-18 Ryan M. Bena , Gilbert Bahati , Blake Werner , Ryan K. Cosner , Lizhi Yang , Aaron D. Ames

This work addresses the challenge of safe and efficient mobile robot navigation in complex dynamic environments with concave moving obstacles. Reactive safe controllers like Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) design obstacle avoidance…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Yifan Xue , Ze Zhang , Knut Åkesson , Nadia Figueroa

This paper introduces a safe force/position tracking control strategy designed for Free-Floating Mobile Manipulator Systems (MMSs) engaging in compliant contact with planar surfaces. The strategy uniquely integrates the Control Barrier…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-04-23 Maryam Sharifi , Shahab Heshmati-Alamdari

Uncertainties arising in various control systems, such as robots that are subject to unknown disturbances or environmental variations, pose significant challenges for ensuring system safety, such as collision avoidance. At the same time,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-03-28 Matti Vahs , Jana Tumova

In safety-critical control, managing safety constraints with high relative degrees and uncertain obstacle dynamics pose significant challenges in guaranteeing safety performance. Robust Control Barrier Functions (RCBFs) offer a potential…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-06 Kwang Hak Kim , Mamadou Diagne , Miroslav Krstić

In this paper, we propose a safety-critical controller based on time-varying control barrier functions (CBFs) for a robot with an unicycle model in the continuous-time domain to achieve navigation and dynamic collision avoidance. Unlike…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-07-18 Jihao Huang , Zhitao Liu , Jun Zeng , Xuemin Chi , Hongye Su

We present a novel control strategy for dynamic legged locomotion in complex scenarios, that considers information about the morphology of the terrain in contexts when only on-board mapping and computation are available. The strategy is…

Physical human-robot interaction offers the potential to leverage human intelligence and robot physical capabilities to enable a range of exciting applications, e.g., collaborative robots for rehabilitation. Safety is critical for the…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Rui Luo , Jonas Mariager Jakobsen , Wesley Roozing , Federico Califano , Cheng Fang

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are a powerful tool for ensuring the safety of autonomous systems, yet applying them to nonholonomic robots in cluttered, dynamic environments remains an open challenge. State-of-the-art methods often rely…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Hun Kuk Park , Taekyung Kim , Dimitra Panagou