No Arabic abstract
Euclidean Signed Distance Field (ESDF) is useful for online motion planning of aerial robots since it can easily query the distance and gradient information against obstacles. Fast incrementally built ESDF map is the bottleneck for conducting real-time motion planning. In this paper, we investigate this problem and propose a mapping system called FIESTA to build global ESDF map incrementally. By introducing two independent updating queues for inserting and deleting obstacles separately, and using Indexing Data Structures and Doubly Linked Lists for map maintenance, our algorithm updates as few as possible nodes using a BFS framework. Our ESDF map has high computational performance and produces near-optimal results. We show our method outperforms other up-to-date methods in term of performance and accuracy by both theory and experiments. We integrate FIESTA into a completed quadrotor system and validate it by both simulation and onboard experiments. We release our method as open-source software for the community.
Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of wheeled robots when driving on suitably flat surfaces and versatility of legged robots when stepping over or around obstacles. This paper introduces a planning and control framework to realise dynamic locomotion for wheeled biped robots. We propose the Cart-Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (Cart-LIPM) as a template model for the rolling motion and the under-actuated LIPM for contact changes while walking. The generated motion is then tracked by an inverse dynamic whole-body controller which coordinates all joints, including the wheels. The framework has a hierarchical structure and is implemented in a model predictive control (MPC) fashion. To validate the proposed approach for hybrid motion generation, two scenarios involving different types of obstacles are designed in simulation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such online dynamic hybrid locomotion has been demonstrated on wheeled biped robots.
This paper studies the problem of control strategy synthesis for dynamical systems with differential constraints to fulfill a given reachability goal while satisfying a set of safety rules. Particular attention is devoted to goals that become feasible only if a subset of the safety rules are violated. The proposed algorithm computes a control law, that minimizes the level of unsafety while the desired goal is guaranteed to be reached. This problem is motivated by an autonomous car navigating an urban environment while following rules of the road such as always travel in right lane and do not change lanes frequently. Ideas behind sampling based motion-planning algorithms, such as Probabilistic Road Maps (PRMs) and Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRTs), are employed to incrementally construct a finite concretization of the dynamics as a durational Kripke structure. In conjunction with this, a weighted finite automaton that captures the safety rules is used in order to find an optimal trajectory that minimizes the violation of safety rules. We prove that the proposed algorithm guarantees asymptotic optimality, i.e., almost-sure convergence to optimal solutions. We present results of simulation experiments and an implementation on an autonomous urban mobility-on-demand system.
In this paper we present a new approach for dynamic motion planning for legged robots. We formulate a trajectory optimization problem based on a compact form of the robot dynamics. Such a form is obtained by projecting the rigid body dynamics onto the null space of the Constraint Jacobian. As consequence of the projection, contact forces are removed from the model but their effects are still taken into account. This approach permits to solve the optimal control problem of a floating base constrained multibody system while avoiding the use of an explicit contact model. We use direct transcription to numerically solve the optimization. As the contact forces are not part of the decision variables the size of the resultant discrete mathematical program is reduced and therefore solutions can be obtained in a tractable time. Using a predefined sequence of contact configurations (phases), our approach solves motions where contact switches occur. Transitions between phases are automatically resolved without using a model for switching dynamics. We present results on a hydraulic quadruped robot (HyQ), including single phase (standing, crouching) as well as multiple phase (rearing, diagonal leg balancing and stepping) dynamic motions.
Reliable real-time planning for robots is essential in todays rapidly expanding automated ecosystem. In such environments, traditional methods that plan by relaxing constraints become unreliable or slow-down for kinematically constrained robots. This paper describes the algorithm Dynamic Motion Planning Networks (Dynamic MPNet), an extension to Motion Planning Networks, for non-holonomic robots that address the challenge of real-time motion planning using a neural planning approach. We propose modifications to the training and planning networks that make it possible for real-time planning while improving the data efficiency of training and trained models generalizability. We evaluate our model in simulation for planning tasks for a non-holonomic robot. We also demonstrate experimental results for an indoor navigation task using a Dubins car.
Sampling-based motion planners rely on incremental densification to discover progressively shorter paths. After computing feasible path $xi$ between start $x_s$ and goal $x_t$, the Informed Set (IS) prunes the configuration space $mathcal{C}$ by conservatively eliminating points that cannot yield shorter paths. Densification via sampling from this Informed Set retains asymptotic optimality of sampling from the entire configuration space. For path length $c(xi)$ and Euclidean heuristic $h$, $IS = { x | x in mathcal{C}, h(x_s, x) + h(x, x_t) leq c(xi) }$. Relying on the heuristic can render the IS especially conservative in high dimensions or complex environments. Furthermore, the IS only shrinks when shorter paths are discovered. Thus, the computational effort from each iteration of densification and planning is wasted if it fails to yield a shorter path, despite improving the cost-to-come for vertices in the search tree. Our key insight is that even in such a failure, shorter paths to vertices in the search tree (rather than just the goal) can immediately improve the planners sampling strategy. Guided Incremental Local Densification (GuILD) leverages this information to sample from Local Subsets of the IS. We show that GuILD significantly outperforms uniform sampling of the Informed Set in simulated $mathbb{R}^2$, $SE(2)$ environments and manipulation tasks in $mathbb{R}^7$.