Related papers: Guarding Force: Safety-Critical Compliant Control …
Set invariance techniques such as control barrier functions (CBFs) can be used to enforce time-varying constraints such as keeping a safe distance from dynamic objects. However, existing methods for enforcing time-varying constraints often…
In this paper, we introduce a class of future-focused control barrier functions (ff-CBF) aimed at improving traditionally myopic CBF based control design and study their efficacy in the context of an unsignaled four-way intersection…
Controlling fine-grained forces during manipulation remains a core challenge in robotics. While robot policies learned from robot-collected data or simulation show promise, they struggle to generalize across the diverse range of real-world…
Autonomous robots navigating in changing environments demand adaptive navigation strategies for safe long-term operation. While many modern control paradigms offer theoretical guarantees, they often assume known extrinsic safety…
This article introduces a safe control strategy for application of forces to an external object using a dexterous robotic arm mounted on an unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). A hybrid force-motion controller has been developed for this purpose.…
This manuscript presents a model of compliant contacts for time-critical humanoid robot motion control. The proposed model considers the environment as a continuum of spring-damper systems, which allows us to compute the equivalent contact…
Contact-rich manipulation demands human-like integration of perception and force feedback: vision should guide task progress, while high-frequency interaction control must stabilize contact under uncertainty. Existing learning-based…
We present a novel method for designing higher-order Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) that guarantee convergence to a safe set within a user-specified finite. Traditional Higher Order CBFs (HOCBFs) ensure asymptotic safety but lack…
In this paper, we focus on non-conservative collision avoidance between robots and obstacles with control affine dynamics and convex shapes. System safety is defined using the minimum distance between the safe regions associated with robots…
Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been widely applied to safety-critical robotic applications. However, the construction of control barrier functions for robotic systems remains a challenging task. Recently, collision detection using…
This paper considers safe control synthesis for dynamical systems with either probabilistic or worst-case uncertainty in both the dynamics model and the safety constraints. We formulate novel probabilistic and robust (worst-case) control…
Robots that physically interact with their surroundings, in order to accomplish some tasks or assist humans in their activities, require to exploit contact forces in a safe and proficient manner. Impedance control is considered as a…
Applications that require multi-robot systems to operate independently for extended periods of time in unknown or unstructured environments face a broad set of challenges, such as hardware degradation, changing weather patterns, or…
In this paper, we develop a novel adaptation-based approach to constrained control design under multiple state and input constraints. Specifically, we introduce a method for synthesizing any number of time-varying candidate control barrier…
Robots need to manipulate objects in constrained environments like shelves and cabinets when assisting humans in everyday settings like homes and offices. These constraints make manipulation difficult by reducing grasp accessibility, so…
This tutorial paper presents recent work of the authors that extends the theory of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to address practical challenges in the synthesis of safe controllers for autonomous systems and robots. We present novel…
We present a closed-form optimal feedback control method that ensures safety in an a prior unknown and potentially dynamic environment. This article considers the scenario where local perception data (e.g., LiDAR) is obtained periodically,…
The safety-critical control of robotic systems often must account for multiple, potentially conflicting, safety constraints. This paper proposes novel relaxation techniques to address safety-critical control problems in the presence of…
A flexible active safety motion (FASM) control approach is proposed for the avoidance of dynamic obstacles and the reference tracking in robot manipulators. The distinctive feature of the proposed method lies in its utilization of control…
This paper studies safety and feasibility guarantees for systems with tight control bounds. It has been shown that stabilizing an affine control system while optimizing a quadratic cost and satisfying state and control constraints can be…