arXiv subjects

Aaron D. Ames

Publications and source records attributed to Aaron D. Ames.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Safety-Critical Control with Bounded Inputs via Reduced Order Models

Guaranteeing safe behavior on complex autonomous systems -- from cars to walking robots -- is challenging due to the inherently high dimensional nature of these systems and the corresponding complex models that may be difficult to determine in practice. With this as motivation, this paper presents a safety-critical control framework that leverages reduced order models to ensure safety on the full order dynamics -- even when these models are subject to disturbances and bounded inputs (e.g., actuation limits). To handle input constraints, the backup set method is reformulated in the context of reduced order models, and conditions for the provably safe behavior of the full order system are derived. Then, the input-to-state safe backup set method is introduced to provide robustness against discrepancies between the reduced order model and the actual system. Finally, the proposed framework is demonstrated in high-fidelity simulation, where a quadrupedal robot is safely navigated around an obstacle with legged locomotion by the help of the unicycle model.

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arXiv2023

Robust Safety under Stochastic Uncertainty with Discrete-Time Control Barrier Functions

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 that are provably safe under uncertainties. To this end, we leverage Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) which guarantee that a robot remains in a ``safe set'' during its operation -- yet CBFs (and their associated guarantees) are traditionally studied in the context of continuous-time, deterministic systems with bounded uncertainties. In this work, we study the safety properties of discrete-time CBFs (DTCBFs) for systems with discrete-time dynamics and unbounded stochastic disturbances. Using tools from martingale theory, we develop probabilistic bounds for the safety (over a finite time horizon) of systems whose dynamics satisfy the discrete-time barrier function condition in expectation, and analyze the effect of Jensen's inequality on DTCBF-based controllers. Finally, we present several examples of our method synthesizing safe control inputs for systems subject to significant process noise, including an inverted pendulum, a double integrator, and a quadruped locomoting on a narrow path.

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arXiv2023

Barrier-Based Test Synthesis for Safety-Critical Systems Subject to Timed Reach-Avoid Specifications

We propose an adversarial, time-varying test-synthesis procedure for safety-critical systems without requiring specific knowledge of the underlying controller steering the system. From a broader test and evaluation context, determination of difficult tests of system behavior is important as these tests would elucidate problematic system phenomena before these mistakes can engender problematic outcomes, e.g. loss of human life in autonomous cars, costly failures for airplane systems, etc. Our approach builds on existing, simulation-based work in the test and evaluation literature by offering a controller-agnostic test-synthesis procedure that provides a series of benchmark tests with which to determine controller reliability. To achieve this, our approach codifies the system objective as a timed reach-avoid specification. Then, by coupling control barrier functions with this class of specifications, we construct an instantaneous difficulty metric whose minimizer corresponds to the most difficult test at that system state. We use this instantaneous difficulty metric in a game-theoretic fashion, to produce an adversarial, time-varying test-synthesis procedure that does not require specific knowledge of the system's controller, but can still provably identify realizable and maximally difficult tests of system behavior. Finally, we develop this test-synthesis procedure for both continuous and discrete-time systems and showcase our test-synthesis procedure on simulated and hardware examples.

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arXiv2023

Disturbance Observers for Robust Safety-critical Control with Control Barrier Functions

This work provides formal safety guarantees for control systems with disturbance. A disturbance observer-based robust safety-critical controller is proposed, that estimates the effect of the disturbance on safety and utilizes this estimate with control barrier functions to attain provably safe dynamic behavior. The observer error bound - which consists of transient and steady-state parts - is quantified, and the system is endowed with robustness against this error via the proposed controller. An adaptive cruise control problem is used as illustrative example through simulations including real disturbance data.

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arXiv2022

End-to-End Imitation Learning with Safety Guarantees using Control Barrier Functions

Imitation learning (IL) is a learning paradigm which can be used to synthesize controllers for complex systems that mimic behavior demonstrated by an expert (user or control algorithm). Despite their popularity, IL methods generally lack guarantees of safety, which limits their utility for complex safety-critical systems. In this work we consider safety, formulated as set-invariance, and the associated formal guarantees endowed by Control Barrier Functions (CBFs). We develop conditions under which robustly-safe expert controllers, utilizing CBFs, can be used to learn end-to-end controllers (which we refer to as CBF-Compliant controllers) that have safety guarantees. These guarantees are presented from the perspective of input-to-state safety (ISSf) which considers safety in the context of disturbances, wherein it is shown that IL using robustly safe expert demonstrations results in ISSf with the disturbance directly related to properties of the learning problem. We demonstrate these safety guarantees in simulated vision-based end-to-end control of an inverted pendulum and a car driving on a track.

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arXiv2022

Learning Disturbances Online for Risk-Aware Control: Risk-Aware Flight with Less Than One Minute of Data

Recent advances in safety-critical risk-aware control are predicated on apriori knowledge of the disturbances a system might face. This paper proposes a method to efficiently learn these disturbances online, in a risk-aware context. First, we introduce the concept of a Surface-at-Risk, a risk measure for stochastic processes that extends Value-at-Risk -- a commonly utilized risk measure in the risk-aware controls community. Second, we model the norm of the state discrepancy between the model and the true system evolution as a scalar-valued stochastic process and determine an upper bound to its Surface-at-Risk via Gaussian Process Regression. Third, we provide theoretical results on the accuracy of our fitted surface subject to mild assumptions that are verifiable with respect to the data sets collected during system operation. Finally, we experimentally verify our procedure by augmenting a drone's controller and highlight performance increases achieved via our risk-aware approach after collecting less than a minute of operating data.

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arXiv2022

Safety-Critical Control with Input Delay in Dynamic Environment

Endowing nonlinear systems with safe behavior is increasingly important in modern control. This task is particularly challenging for real-life control systems that must operate safely in dynamically changing environments. This paper develops a framework for safety-critical control in dynamic environments, by establishing the notion of environmental control barrier functions (ECBFs). The framework is able to guarantee safety even in the presence of input delay, by accounting for the evolution of the environment during the delayed response of the system. The underlying control synthesis relies on predicting the future state of the system and the environment over the delay interval, with robust safety guarantees against prediction errors. The efficacy of the proposed method is demonstrated by a simple adaptive cruise control problem and a more complex robotics application on a Segway platform.

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arXiv2022

The Mixed-Observable Constrained Linear Quadratic Regulator Problem: the Exact Solution and Practical Algorithms

This paper studies the problem of steering a linear time-invariant system subject to state and input constraints towards a goal location that may be inferred only through partial observations. We assume mixed-observable settings, where the system's state is fully observable and the environment's state defining the goal location is only partially observed. In these settings, the planning problem is an infinite-dimensional optimization problem where the objective is to minimize the expected cost. We show how to reformulate the control problem as a finite-dimensional deterministic problem by optimizing over a trajectory tree. Leveraging this result, we demonstrate that when the environment is static, the observation model piecewise, and cost function convex, the original control problem can be reformulated as a Mixed-Integer Convex Program (MICP) that can be solved to global optimality using a branch-and-bound algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on navigation tasks, where the system has to reach a goal location identified from partial observations.

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arXiv2022

Input-to-State Safety with Input Delay in Longitudinal Vehicle Control

Safe longitudinal control is discussed for a connected automated truck traveling behind a preceding connected vehicle. A controller is proposed based on control barrier function theory and predictor feedback for provably safe, collision-free behavior by taking into account the significant response time of the truck as input delay and the uncertainty of its dynamical model as input disturbance. The benefits of the proposed controller compared to control designs that neglect the delay or treat the delay as disturbance are shown by numerical simulations.

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arXiv2022

Safety-Critical Control of Compartmental Epidemiological Models with Measurement Delays

We introduce a methodology to guarantee safety against the spread of infectious diseases by viewing epidemiological models as control systems and by considering human interventions (such as quarantining or social distancing) as control input. We consider a generalized compartmental model that represents the form of the most popular epidemiological models and we design safety-critical controllers that formally guarantee safe evolution with respect to keeping certain populations of interest under prescribed safe limits. Furthermore, we discuss how measurement delays originated from incubation period and testing delays affect safety and how delays can be compensated via predictor feedback. We demonstrate our results by synthesizing active intervention policies that bound the number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths for epidemiological models capturing the spread of COVID-19 in the USA.

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arXiv2022

Mixed Observable RRT: Multi-Agent Mission-Planning in Partially Observable Environments

This paper considers centralized mission-planning for a heterogeneous multi-agent system with the aim of locating a hidden target. We propose a mixed observable setting, consisting of a fully observable state-space and a partially observable environment, using a hidden Markov model. First, we construct rapidly exploring random trees (RRTs) to introduce the mixed observable RRT for finding plausible mission plans giving way-points for each agent. Leveraging this construction, we present a path-selection strategy based on a dynamic programming approach, which accounts for the uncertainty from partial observations and minimizes the expected cost. Finally, we combine the high-level plan with model predictive control algorithms to evaluate the approach on an experimental setup consisting of a quadruped robot and a drone. It is shown that agents are able to make intelligent decisions to explore the area efficiently and to locate the target through collaborative actions.

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arXiv2022

Planar Bipedal Locomotion with Nonlinear Model Predictive Control: Online Gait Generation using Whole-Body Dynamics

The ability to generate dynamic walking in real-time for bipedal robots with input constraints and underactuation has the potential to enable locomotion in dynamic, complex and unstructured environments. Yet, the high-dimensional nature of bipedal robots has limited the use of full-order rigid body dynamics to gaits which are synthesized offline and then tracked online. In this work we develop an online nonlinear model predictive control approach that leverages the full-order dynamics to realize diverse walking behaviors. Additionally, this approach can be coupled with gaits synthesized offline via a desired reference to enable a shorter prediction horizon and rapid online re-planning, bridging the gap between online reactive control and offline gait planning. We demonstrate the proposed method, both with and without an offline gait, on the planar robot AMBER-3M in simulation and on hardware.

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arXiv2022

Synthesizing Reactive Test Environments for Autonomous Systems: Testing Reach-Avoid Specifications with Multi-Commodity Flows

We study automated test generation for verifying discrete decision-making modules in autonomous systems. We utilize linear temporal logic to encode the requirements on the system under test in the system specification and the behavior that we want to observe during the test is given as the test specification which is unknown to the system. First, we use the specifications and their corresponding non-deterministic Büchi automata to generate the specification product automaton. Second, a virtual product graph representing the high-level interaction between the system and the test environment is constructed modeling the product automaton encoding the system, the test environment, and specifications. The main result of this paper is an optimization problem, framed as a multi-commodity network flow problem, that solves for constraints on the virtual product graph which can then be projected to the test environment. Therefore, the result of the optimization problem is reactive test synthesis that ensures that the system meets the test specifications along with satisfying the system specifications. This framework is illustrated in simulation on grid world examples, and demonstrated on hardware with the Unitree A1 quadruped, wherein dynamic locomotion behaviors are verified in the context of reactive test environments.

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arXiv2022

Emulating Human Kinematic Behavior on Lower-Limb Prostheses via Multi-Contact Models and Force-Based Nonlinear Control

Ankle push-off largely contributes to limb energy generation in human walking, leading to smoother and more efficient locomotion. Providing this net positive work to an amputee requires an active prosthesis, but has the potential to enable more natural assisted locomotion. To this end, this paper uses multi-contact models of locomotion together with force-based nonlinear optimization-based controllers to achieve human-like kinematic behavior, including ankle push-off, on a powered transfemoral prosthesis for 2 subjects. In particular, we leverage model-based control approaches for dynamic bipedal robotic walking to develop a systematic method to realize human-like walking on a powered prosthesis that does not require subject-specific tuning. We begin by synthesizing an optimization problem that yields gaits that resemble human joint trajectories at a kinematic level, and realize these gaits on a prosthesis through a control Lyapunov function based nonlinear controller that responds to real-time ground reaction forces and interaction forces with the human. The proposed controller is implemented on a prosthesis for two subjects without tuning between subjects, emulating subject-specific human kinematic trends on the prosthesis joints. These experimental results demonstrate that our force-based nonlinear control approach achieves better tracking of human kinematic trajectories than traditional methods.

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arXiv2022

Safety-Critical Controller Verification via Sim2Real Gap Quantification

The well-known quote from George Box states that: "All models are wrong, but some are useful." To develop more useful models, we quantify the inaccuracy with which a given model represents a system of interest, so that we may leverage this quantity to facilitate controller synthesis and verification. Specifically, we develop a procedure that identifies a sim2real gap that holds with a minimum probability. Augmenting the nominal model with our identified sim2real gap produces an uncertain model which we prove is an accurate representor of system behavior. We leverage this uncertain model to synthesize and verify a controller in simulation using a probabilistic verification approach. This pipeline produces controllers with an arbitrarily high probability of realizing desired safe behavior on system hardware without requiring hardware testing except for those required for sim2real gap identification. We also showcase our procedure working on two hardware platforms - the Robotarium and a quadruped.

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arXiv2022

POLAR: Preference Optimization and Learning Algorithms for Robotics

Parameter tuning for robotic systems is a time-consuming and challenging task that often relies on domain expertise of the human operator. Moreover, existing learning methods are not well suited for parameter tuning for many reasons including: the absence of a clear numerical metric for `good robotic behavior'; limited data due to the reliance on real-world experimental data; and the large search space of parameter combinations. In this work, we present an open-source MATLAB Preference Optimization and Learning Algorithms for Robotics toolbox (POLAR) for systematically exploring high-dimensional parameter spaces using human-in-the-loop preference-based learning. This aim of this toolbox is to systematically and efficiently accomplish one of two objectives: 1) to optimize robotic behaviors for human operator preference; 2) to learn the operator's underlying preference landscape to better understand the relationship between adjustable parameters and operator preference. The POLAR toolbox achieves these objectives using only subjective feedback mechanisms (pairwise preferences, coactive feedback, and ordinal labels) to infer a Bayesian posterior over the underlying reward function dictating the user's preferences. We demonstrate the performance of the toolbox in simulation and present various applications of human-in-the-loop preference-based learning.

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arXiv2022

Safe Drone Flight with Time-Varying Backup Controllers

The weight, space, and power limitations of small aerial vehicles often prevent the application of modern control techniques without significant model simplifications. Moreover, high-speed agile behavior, such as that exhibited in drone racing, make these simplified models too unreliable for safety-critical control. In this work, we introduce the concept of time-varying backup controllers (TBCs): user-specified maneuvers combined with backup controllers that generate reference trajectories which guarantee the safety of nonlinear systems. TBCs reduce conservatism when compared to traditional backup controllers and can be directly applied to multi-agent coordination to guarantee safety. Theoretically, we provide conditions under which TBCs strictly reduce conservatism, describe how to switch between several TBC's and show how to embed TBCs in a multi-agent setting. Experimentally, we verify that TBCs safely increase operational freedom when filtering a pilot's actions and demonstrate robustness and computational efficiency when applied to decentralized safety filtering of two quadrotors.

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arXiv2022

Unified Multi-Rate Control: from Low Level Actuation to High Level Planning

In this paper we present a hierarchical multi-rate control architecture for nonlinear autonomous systems operating in partially observable environments. Control objectives are expressed using syntactically co-safe Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) specifications and the nonlinear system is subject to state and input constraints. At the highest level of abstraction, we model the system-environment interaction using a discrete Mixed Observable Markov Decision Problem (MOMDP), where the environment states are partially observed. The high level control policy is used to update the constraint sets and cost function of a Model Predictive Controller (MPC) which plans a reference trajectory. Afterwards, the MPC planned trajectory is fed to a low-level high-frequency tracking controller, which leverages Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to guarantee bounded tracking errors. Our strategy is based on model abstractions of increasing complexity and layers running at different frequencies. We show that the proposed hierarchical multi-rate control architecture maximizes the probability of satisfying the high-level specifications while guaranteeing state and input constraint satisfaction. Finally, we tested the proposed strategy in simulations and experiments on examples inspired by the Mars exploration mission, where only partial environment observations are available.

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