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We present a method for synthesizing dynamic, reduced-order output-feedback polynomial control policies for control-affine nonlinear systems which guarantees runtime stability to a goal state, when using visual observations and a learned…
Stochastic uncertainties in complex dynamical systems lead to variability of system states, which can in turn degrade the closed-loop performance. This paper presents a stochastic model predictive control approach for a class of nonlinear…
We propose control and communication strategies for nonlinear networked control systems subject to state and input constraints. The objective is to steer the state of the system towards a prescribed target set in finite time…
Point-to-point and periodic motions are ubiquitous in the world of robotics. To master these motions, Autonomous Dynamic System (DS) based algorithms are fundamental in the domain of Learning from Demonstration (LfD). However, these…
Achieving both optimality and safety under unknown system dynamics is a central challenge in real-world deployment of agents. To address this, we introduce a notion of maximum safe dynamics learning, where sufficient exploration is…
Low-thrust trajectory design relies heavily on repeated evaluations of fuel consumption and transfer feasibility, which require expensive optimal control solutions. In this work, we show these quantities can be accurately approximated by…
This paper introduces the concept of parameter-dependent (PD) control Lyapunov functions (CLFs) for gain-scheduled stabilization of nonlinear parameter-varying (NPV) systems. It shows that given a PD-CLF, a min-norm control law can be…
The general objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to study the dynamics and control of rigid and flexible spacecraft supported by a high-fidelity numerical simulation environment. The demand for greater attitude pointing precision, attitude…
This paper presents a novel method to synthesize stochastic control Lyapunov functions for a class of nonlinear, stochastic control systems. In this work, the classical nonlinear Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman partial differential equation is…
While classical approaches to autonomous robot navigation currently enable operation in certain environments, they break down in tightly constrained spaces, e.g., where the robot needs to engage in agile maneuvers to squeeze between…
Traditional reinforcement learning lacks the ability to provide stability guarantees. More recent algorithms learn Lyapunov functions alongside the control policies to ensure stable learning. However, the current self-learned Lyapunov…
This paper studies control synthesis for a general class of nonlinear, control-affine dynamical systems under additive disturbances and state-estimation errors. We enforce forward invariance of static and dynamic safe sets and convergence…
Modern end-to-end learning systems can learn to explicitly infer control from perception. However, it is difficult to guarantee stability and robustness for these systems since they are often exposed to unstructured, high-dimensional, and…
The autonomous operation of flexible-wing aircraft is technically challenging and has never been presented within literature. The lack of an exact modeling framework is due to the complex nonlinear aerodynamic relationships governed by the…
Before 2025, no open-source system existed that could learn Lyapunov stability certificates directly from noisy, real-world flight data. This work addresses that gap by proposing a data-driven approach that learns Lyapunov functions from…
Learning-based control techniques use data from past trajectories to control systems with uncertain dynamics. However, learning-based controllers are often computationally inefficient, limiting their practicality. To address this…
Establishing stability certificates for closed-loop systems under reinforcement learning (RL) policies is essential to move beyond empirical performance and offer guarantees of system behavior. Classical Lyapunov methods require a strict…
In contexts where data samples represent a physically stable state, it is often assumed that the data points represent the local minima of an energy landscape. In control theory, it is well-known that energy can serve as an effective…
This paper establishes relationships between continuous-time, receding horizon, nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) and control Lyapunov and control barrier functions (CLF/CBF). We show that, if the cost function "behaves well" for…
Learning-based neural network (NN) control policies have shown impressive empirical performance in a wide range of tasks in robotics and control. However, formal (Lyapunov) stability guarantees over the region-of-attraction (ROA) for NN…