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This work combines control barrier functions (CBFs) with a whole-body controller to enable self-collision avoidance for the MIT Humanoid. Existing reactive controllers for self-collision avoidance cannot guarantee collision-free…
In multi-robot systems where a central decision maker is specifying the movement of each individual robot, a communication failure can severely impair the performance of the system. This paper develops a motion strategy that allows robots…
Guiding the visually impaired in complex environments requires real-time two-way interaction and safety assurance. We propose a Force-Compliance Model Predictive Control (FC-MPC) and Robot-User Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) for…
Safety stands as the primary obstacle preventing the widespread adoption of learning-based robotic systems in our daily lives. While reinforcement learning (RL) shows promise as an effective robot learning paradigm, conventional RL…
The control barrier function (CBF) has become a fundamental tool in safety-critical systems design since its invention. Typically, the quadratic optimization framework is employed to accommodate CBFs, control Lyapunov functions (CLFs),…
In this paper, we study a safe control design for dynamical systems in the presence of uncertainty in a dynamical environment. The worst-case error approach is considered to formulate robust Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) in an…
The safety of training task policies and their subsequent application using reinforcement learning (RL) methods has become a focal point in the field of safe RL. A central challenge in this area remains the establishment of theoretical…
Safe operation of multi-robot systems is critical, especially in communication-degraded environments such as underwater for seabed mapping, underground caves for navigation, and in extraterrestrial missions for assembly and construction. We…
This paper studies the problem of finite-time convergence to a prescribed safe set for nonlinear systems whose initial states violate the safety constraints. Existing Control Lyapunov-Barrier Functions (CLBFs) can enforce recovery to the…
Control barrier functions (CBFs) have emerged as a popular topic in safety critical control due to their ability to provide formal safety guarantees for dynamical systems. Despite their powerful capabilities, the determination of feasible…
Legged robots exhibit significant potential across diverse applications, including but not limited to hazardous environment search and rescue missions and the exploration of unexplored regions both on Earth and in outer space. However, the…
Correct-by-construction techniques, such as control barrier functions (CBFs), can be used to guarantee closed-loop safety by acting as a supervisor of an existing or legacy controller. However, supervisory-control intervention typically…
This paper proposes a fully decentralized model predictive control (MPC) framework with control barrier function (CBF) constraints for safety-critical trajectory planning in multi-robot legged systems. The incorporation of CBF constraints…
Robots in densely populated real-world environments frequently encounter constrained and cluttered situations such as passing through narrow doorways, hallways, and corridor intersections, where conflicts over limited space result in…
This paper addresses the challenge of integrating explicit hard constraints into the control barrier function (CBF) framework for ensuring safety in autonomous systems, including robots. We propose a novel data-driven method to derive CBFs…
Deploying a team of robots that can carefully coordinate their actions can make the entire system robust to individual failures. In this report, we review recent algorithmic development in making multi-robot systems robust to environmental…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms have found limited success beyond simulated applications, and one main reason is the absence of safety guarantees during the learning process. Real world systems would realistically fail or break…
In this paper, we present a decentralized sensor-level collision avoidance policy for multi-robot systems, which shows promising results in practical applications. In particular, our policy directly maps raw sensor measurements to an…
In this paper, we propose the safety barrier certificates for uncertain multi-robot systems playing red light, green light game. According to the rule of the game, the robots are allowed to move forward after a doll shouts `green light' and…
This paper investigates a distributed formation control problem for networked robots, with the global objective of achieving predefined time-varying formations in an environment with obstacles. A novel fixed-time behavioral approach is…