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Computational constraints permeate the controller design process, and yet are rarely treated as explicit design constraints. Towards addressing this gap, we propose a quantitative framework that captures the effects of common design…
Learning abstractions directly from data is a core challenge in robotics. Humans naturally operate at an abstract level, reasoning over high-level subgoals while delegating execution to low-level motor skills -- an ability that enables…
In a Bayesian context, theoretical parameters are correlated random variables. Then, the constraints on one parameter can be improved by either measuring this parameter more precisely - or by measuring the other parameters more precisely.…
We describe general heuristics to approximately solve a wide variety of problems with convex objective and decision variables from a nonconvex set. The heuristics, which employ convex relaxations, convex restrictions, local neighbor search…
This paper presents a method that addresses the conservatism, computational effort, and limited numerical accuracy of existing frameworks and methods that ensure safety in online model-based motion generation, commonly referred to as fast…
Multistage risk-averse optimal control problems with nested conditional risk mappings are gaining popularity in various application domains. Risk-averse formulations interpolate between the classical expectation-based stochastic and minimax…
We propose a novel planning technique for satisfying tasks specified in temporal logic in partially revealed environments. We define high-level actions derived from the environment and the given task itself, and estimate how each action…
This paper presents a controller design framework aiming to balance control performance and actuation rate. Control performance is evaluated by an infinite-horizon average cost, and the number of control actions is penalized via…
We use ideas from distributed computing to study dynamic environments in which computational nodes, or decision makers, follow adaptive heuristics (Hart 2005), i.e., simple and unsophisticated rules of behavior, e.g., repeatedly "best…
This paper presents a general convergence theory of penalty based numerical methods for elliptic constrained inequality problems, including variational inequalities, hemivariational inequalities, and variational-hemivariational…
This paper considers the optimal control for hybrid systems whose trajectories transition between distinct subsystems when state-dependent constraints are satisfied. Though this class of systems is useful while modeling a variety of…
This paper presents a unified optimization-based path planning approach to efficiently compute locally optimal solutions to advanced path planning problems. The approach is motivated by first showing that a lattice-based path planner can be…
This work presents a hybrid approach to solve the maximum stable set problem, using constraint and semidefinite programming. The approach consists of two steps: subproblem generation and subproblem solution. First we rank the variable…
In this paper, we propose novel mixed-integer linear programming (MIP) formulations to model decision problems posed as influence diagrams. We also present a novel heuristic that can be employed to warm start the MIP solver, as well as…
This paper proposes a general formulation for temporal parallelisation of dynamic programming for optimal control problems. We derive the elements and associative operators to be able to use parallel scans to solve these problems with…
A widely used heuristic for solving stochastic optimization problems is to use a deterministic rolling horizon procedure, which has been modified to handle uncertainty (e.g. buffer stocks, schedule slack). This approach has been criticized…
Dynamic zero-sum games are an important class of problems with applications ranging from evasion-pursuit and heads-up poker to certain adversarial versions of control problems such as multi-armed bandit and multiclass queuing problems.…
This paper introduces the notion of a universal plan, which when executed, is guaranteed to solve all planning problems in a category, regardless of the obstacles, initial state, and goal set. Such plans are specified as a deterministic…
In this work, we investigate an indirect approach for the numerical solution of optimal control problems via neural networks. A customized neural network is constructed, where optimal state, co-state and control trajectories are…
In order to solve complex, long-horizon tasks, intelligent robots need to carry out high-level, abstract planning and reasoning in conjunction with motion planning. However, abstract models are typically lossy and plans or policies computed…