Related papers: A hierarchical control framework for autonomous de…
We present a general framework for applying learning algorithms and heuristical guidance to the verification of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The primary goal of our techniques is to improve performance by avoiding an exhaustive…
The importance of hierarchically structured representations for tractable planning has long been acknowledged. However, the questions of how people discover such abstractions and how to define a set of optimal abstractions remain open. This…
To address the gaps between the static pre-set "thinking-planning-action" of humanoid robots in unfamiliar scenarios and the highly programmed "call tool-return result" due to the lack of autonomous coding capabilities, this work designs a…
Model Predictive Control is an extremely effective control method for systems with input and state constraints. Model Predictive Control performance heavily depends on the accuracy of the open-loop prediction. For systems with uncertainty…
The aim of this paper is to investigate risk-averse and distributionally robust modeling of Stochastic Optimal Control (SOC) and Markov Decision Process (MDP). We discuss construction of conditional nested risk functionals, a particular…
This paper presents a hierarchical control scheme for interconnected linear systems. At the higher layer of the control structure a robust centralized Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm based on a reduced order dynamic model of the…
The framework of mixed observable Markov decision processes (MOMDP) models many robotic domains in which some state variables are fully observable while others are not. In this work, we identify a significant subclass of MOMDPs defined by…
Despite great successes, model predictive control (MPC) relies on an accurate dynamical model and requires high onboard computational power, impeding its wider adoption in engineering systems, especially for nonlinear real-time systems with…
A multi-agent partially observable Markov decision process (MPOMDP) is a modeling paradigm used for high-level planning of heterogeneous autonomous agents subject to uncertainty and partial observation. Despite their modeling efficiency,…
Designing control policies for large, distributed systems is challenging, especially in the context of critical, temporal logic based specifications (e.g., safety) that must be met with high probability. Compositional methods for such…
This paper demonstrates the applicability of the safe model predictive control (SMPC) framework to autonomous driving scenarios, focusing on the design of adaptive cruise control (ACC) and automated lane-change systems. Building on the SMPC…
Many control problems in environments that can be modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs) concern infinite-time horizon specifications. The classical aim in this context is to compute a control policy that maximizes the probability of…
In complex traffic environments, autonomous vehicles face multi-modal uncertainty about other agents' future behavior. To address this, recent advancements in learningbased motion predictors output multi-modal predictions. We present our…
This paper explores some variations of a hierarchical control framework that has been recently proposed. The framework is dedicated to control a network of interconnected subsystems such as the ones describing cryogenic processes or power…
Model Predictive Control (MPC) has become a popular framework in embedded control for high-performance autonomous systems. However, to achieve good control performance using MPC, an accurate dynamics model is key. To maintain real-time…
In this paper, we propose a compositional approach for the construction of finite abstractions (a.k.a. finite Markov decision processes (MDPs)) for networks of discrete-time stochastic control subsystems that are not necessarily…
We review the literature on individual patient organ acceptance decision making by presenting a Markov Decision Process (MDP) model to formulate the organ acceptance decision process as a stochastic control problem. Under the umbrella of…
Many applications -- including power systems, robotics, and economics -- involve a dynamical system interacting with a stochastic and hard-to-model environment. We adopt a reinforcement learning approach to control such systems.…
Planning problems are hard, motion planning, for example, isPSPACE-hard. Such problems are even more difficult in the presence of uncertainty. Although, Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) provide a formal framework for such problems, finding…
As autonomous vehicles move from a simplified research setting to practical use, there exists a large gap between the dynamic behavior of a human driving and an autonomous system. Risk-aware behavior needs to naturally develop in order to…