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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…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-04-16 Yousef Emam , Paul Glotfelter , Sean Wilson , Gennaro Notomista , Magnus Egerstedt

Autonomous robot navigation can be particularly demanding, especially when the surrounding environment is not known and safety of the robot is crucial. This work relates to the synthesis of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) through data for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-07-30 Marvin Harms , Mihir Kulkarni , Nikhil Khedekar , Martin Jacquet , Kostas Alexis

This paper presents a safety-critical locomotion control framework for quadrupedal robots. Our goal is to enable quadrupedal robots to safely navigate in cluttered environments. To tackle this, we introduce exponential Discrete Control…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-08-10 Qiayuan Liao , Zhongyu Li , Akshay Thirugnanam , Jun Zeng , Koushil Sreenath

Safety has been of paramount importance in motion planning and control techniques and is an active area of research in the past few years. Most safety research for mobile robots target at maintaining safety with the notion of collision…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-08-05 Manas Gupta , Xuesu Xiao

Robots deployed in unstructured, real-world environments operate under considerable uncertainty due to imperfect state estimates, model error, and disturbances. Given this real-world context, the goal of this paper is to develop controllers…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-02-27 Ryan K. Cosner , Preston Culbertson , Andrew J. Taylor , Aaron D. Ames

Designing safety-critical controllers for acceleration-controlled unicycle robots is challenging, as control inputs may not appear in the constraints of control Lyapunov functions(CLFs) and control barrier functions (CBFs), leading to…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-03-11 Jihao Huang , Jun Zeng , Xuemin Chi , Koushil Sreenath , Zhitao Liu , Hongye Su

In fields such as mining, search and rescue, and archaeological exploration, ensuring real-time, collision-free navigation of robots in confined, cluttered environments is imperative. Despite the value of established path planning…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-03-28 Manan Tayal , Shishir Kolathaya

Safety is a crucial property of every robotic platform: any control policy should always comply with actuator limits and avoid collisions with the environment and humans. In reinforcement learning, safety is even more fundamental for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-02 Puze Liu , Kuo Zhang , Davide Tateo , Snehal Jauhri , Zhiyuan Hu , Jan Peters , Georgia Chalvatzaki

Generating collision-free motions in dynamic environments is a challenging problem for high-dimensional robotics, particularly under real-time constraints. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs), widely utilized in safety-critical control, have…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-12-24 Xuemin Chi , Yiming Li , Jihao Huang , Bolun Dai , Zhitao Liu , Sylvain Calinon

Safe operation is essential for deploying robots in human-centered 3D environments. Soft continuum manipulators provide passive safety through mechanical compliance, but still require active control to achieve reliable collision avoidance.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-23 Kiwan Wong , Maximillian Stölzle , Wei Xiao , Daniela Rus

Collision avoidance for robotic manipulators requires enforcing full-body safety constraints in high-dimensional configuration spaces. Control Barrier Function (CBF) based safety filters have proven effective in enabling safe behaviors, but…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-24 Meg Wilkinson , Gilbert Bahati , Ryan M. Bena , Emily Fourney , Joel W. Burdick , Aaron D. Ames

Physical human-robot interaction offers the potential to leverage human intelligence and robot physical capabilities to enable a range of exciting applications, e.g., collaborative robots for rehabilitation. Safety is critical for the…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Rui Luo , Jonas Mariager Jakobsen , Wesley Roozing , Federico Califano , Cheng Fang

We propose a design method for a robust safety filter based on Input Constrained Control Barrier Functions (ICCBF) for car-like robots moving in complex environments. A robust ICCBF that can be efficiently implemented is obtained by…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-02-21 Sven Brüggemann , Dominic Nightingale , Jack Silberman , Maurício de Oliveira

Learning to manipulate objects efficiently, particularly those involving sustained contact (e.g., pushing, sliding) and articulated parts (e.g., drawers, doors), presents significant challenges. Traditional methods, such as robot-centric…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-03-18 Shijie Fang , Wenchang Gao , Shivam Goel , Christopher Thierauf , Matthias Scheutz , Jivko Sinapov

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…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-10-28 Manan Tayal , Shishir Kolathaya

Pushing objects through cluttered scenes is a challenging task, especially when the objects to be pushed have initially unknown dynamics and touching other entities has to be avoided to reduce the risk of damage. In this paper, we approach…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-07-18 Nils Dengler , David Großklaus , Maren Bennewitz

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 presents a safety-critical approach to the coordination of robots in dynamic environments. To this end, we leverage control barrier functions (CBFs) with the forward reachable set to guarantee the safe coordination of the robots…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-12-15 Jeeseop Kim , Jaemin Lee , Aaron D. Ames

Dense collections of movable objects are common in everyday spaces-from cabinets in a home to shelves in a warehouse. Safely retracting objects from such collections is difficult for robots, yet people do it frequently, leveraging learned…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-12-02 Dane Brouwer , Joshua Citron , Heather Nolte , Jeannette Bohg , Mark Cutkosky

Control barrier function (CBF)-based methods provide the minimum modification necessary to formally guarantee safety in the context of quadratic programming, and strict safety guarantee for safety critical systems. However, most CBF-related…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-27 Xiaoxiao Li , Zhirui Sun , Hongpeng Wang , Shuai Li , Jiankun Wang