Dense Fixed-Wing Swarming using Receding-Horizon NMPC

In this paper, we present an approach for controlling a team of agile fixed-wing aerial vehicles in close proximity to one another. Our approach relies on receding-horizon nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) to plan maneuvers across an expanded flight envelope to enable inter-agent collision avoidance. To facilitate robust collision avoidance and characterize the likelihood of inter-agent collisions, we compute a statistical bound on the probability of the system leaving a tube around the planned nominal trajectory. Finally, we propose a metric for evaluating highly dynamic swarms and use this metric to evaluate our approach. We successfully demonstrated our approach through both simulation and hardware experiments, and to our knowledge, this the first time close-quarters swarming has been achieved with physical aerobatic fixed-wing vehicles.

Multi-Agent Feedback Motion Planning using Probably Approximately Correct Nonlinear Model Predictive Control

For many tasks, multi-robot teams often provide greater efficiency, robustness, and resiliency. However, multi-robot collaboration in real-world scenarios poses a number of major challenges, especially when dynamic robots must balance competing objectives like formation control and obstacle avoidance in the presence of stochastic dynamics and sensor uncertainty. In this paper, we propose a distributed, multi-agent receding-horizon feedback motion planning approach using Probably Approximately Correct Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (PAC-NMPC) that is able to reason about both model and measurement uncertainty to achieve robust multi-agent formation control while navigating cluttered obstacle fields and avoiding inter-robot collisions. Our approach relies not only on the underlying PAC-NMPC algorithm but also on a terminal cost-function derived from gyroscopic obstacle avoidance. Through numerical simulation, we show that our distributed approach performs on par with a centralized formulation, that it offers improved performance in the case of significant measurement noise, and that it can scale to more complex dynamical systems.

Survey of Simulators for Aerial Robots

Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) research faces challenges with safety, scalability, costs, and ecological impact when conducting hardware testing. High-fidelity simulators offer a vital solution by replicating real-world conditions to enable the development and evaluation of novel perception and control algorithms. However, the large number of available simulators poses a significant challenge for researchers to determine which simulator best suits their specific use-case, based on each simulator's limitations and customization readiness. This paper analyzes existing UAV simulators and decision factors for their selection, aiming to enhance the efficiency and safety of research endeavors.

Uncertainty-Aware Planning for Heterogeneous Robot Teams using Dynamic Topological Graphs and Mixed-Integer Programming

Planning under uncertainty is a fundamental challenge in robotics. For multi-robot teams, the challenge is further exacerbated, since the planning problem can quickly become computationally intractable as the number of robots increase. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for planning under uncertainty using heterogeneous multi-robot teams. In particular, we leverage the notion of a dynamic topological graph and mixed-integer programming to generate multi-robot plans that deploy fast scout team members to reduce uncertainty about the environment. We test our approach in a number of representative scenarios where the robot team must move through an environment while minimizing detection in the presence of uncertain observer positions. We demonstrate that our approach is sufficiently computationally tractable for real-time re-planning in changing environments, can improve performance in the presence of imperfect information, and can be adjusted to accommodate different risk profiles.

PAC-NMPC with Learned Perception-Informed Value Function

Nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) is typically restricted to short, finite horizons to limit the computational burden of online optimization. This makes a global planner necessary to avoid local minima when using NMPC for navigation in complex environments. For this reason, the performance of NMPC approaches are often limited by that of the global planner. While control policies trained with reinforcement learning (RL) can theoretically learn to avoid such local minima, they are usually unable to guarantee enforcement of general state constraints. In this paper, we augment a sampling-based stochastic NMPC (SNMPC) approach with an RL trained perception-informed value function. This allows the system to avoid observable local minima in the environment by reasoning about perception information beyond the finite planning horizon. By using Probably Approximately Correct NMPC (PAC-NMPC) as our base controller, we are also able to generate statistical guarantees of performance and safety. We demonstrate our approach in simulation and on hardware using a 1/10th scale rally car with lidar.

Planning and Control for a Dynamic Morphing-Wing UAV Using a Vortex Particle Model

Achieving precise, highly-dynamic maneuvers with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is a major challenge due to the complexity of the associated aerodynamics. In particular, unsteady effects -- as might be experienced in post-stall regimes or during sudden vehicle morphing -- can have an adverse impact on the performance of modern flight control systems. In this paper, we present a vortex particle model and associated model-based controller capable of reasoning about the unsteady aerodynamics during aggressive maneuvers. We evaluate our approach in hardware on a morphing-wing UAV executing post-stall perching maneuvers. Our results show that the use of the unsteady aerodynamics model improves performance during both fixed-wing and dynamic-wing perching, while the use of wing-morphing planned with quasi-steady aerodynamics results in reduced performance. While the focus of this paper is a pre-computed control policy, we believe that, with sufficient computational resources, our approach could enable online planning in the future.

Multi-Robot Planning on Dynamic Topological Graphs using Mixed-Integer Programming

Planning for multi-robot teams in complex environments is a challenging problem, especially when these teams must coordinate to accomplish a common objective. In general, optimal solutions to these planning problems are computationally intractable, since the decision space grows exponentially with the number of robots. In this paper, we present a novel approach for multi-robot planning on topological graphs using mixed-integer programming. Central to our approach is the notion of a dynamic topological graph, where edge weights vary dynamically based on the locations of the robots in the graph. We construct this graph using the critical features of the planning problem and the relationships between robots; we then leverage mixed-integer programming to minimize a shared cost that depends on the paths of all robots through the graph. To improve computational tractability, we formulated an objective function with a fully convex relaxation and designed our decision space around eliminating the exponential dependence on the number of robots. We test our approach on a multi-robot reconnaissance scenario, where robots must coordinate to minimize detectability and maximize safety while gathering information. We demonstrate that our approach is able to scale to a series of representative scenarios and is capable of computing optimal coordinated strategic behaviors for autonomous multi-robot teams in seconds.

Probably Approximately Correct Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (PAC-NMPC)

Approaches for stochastic nonlinear model predictive control (SNMPC) typically make restrictive assumptions about the system dynamics and rely on approximations to characterize the evolution of the underlying uncertainty distributions. For this reason, they are often unable to capture more complex distributions (e.g., non-Gaussian or multi-modal) and cannot provide accurate guarantees of performance. In this paper, we present a sampling-based SNMPC approach that leverages recently derived sample complexity bounds to certify the performance of a feedback policy without making assumptions about the system dynamics or underlying uncertainty distributions. By parallelizing our approach, we are able to demonstrate real-time receding-horizon SNMPC with statistical safety guarantees in simulation on a 24-inch wingspan fixed-wing UAV and on hardware using a 1/10th scale rally car.

Post-Stall Navigation with Fixed-Wing UAVs using Onboard Vision

Recent research has enabled fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to maneuver in constrained spaces through the use of direct nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC). However, this approach has been limited to a priori known maps and ground truth state measurements. In this paper, we present a direct NMPC approach that leverages NanoMap, a light-weight point-cloud mapping framework to generate collision-free trajectories using onboard stereo vision. We first explore our approach in simulation and demonstrate that our algorithm is sufficient to enable vision-based navigation in urban environments. We then demonstrate our approach in hardware using a 42-inch fixed-wing UAV and show that our motion planning algorithm is capable of navigating around a building using a minimalistic set of goal-points. We also show that storing a point-cloud history is important for navigating these types of constrained environments.

High-Speed Robot Navigation using Predicted Occupancy Maps

Safe and high-speed navigation is a key enabling capability for real world deployment of robotic systems. A significant limitation of existing approaches is the computational bottleneck associated with explicit mapping and the limited field of view (FOV) of existing sensor technologies. In this paper, we study algorithmic approaches that allow the robot to predict spaces extending beyond the sensor horizon for robust planning at high speeds. We accomplish this using a generative neural network trained from real-world data without requiring human annotated labels. Further, we extend our existing control algorithms to support leveraging the predicted spaces to improve collision-free planning and navigation at high speeds. Our experiments are conducted on a physical robot based on the MIT race car using an RGBD sensor where were able to demonstrate improved performance at 4 m/s compared to a controller not operating on predicted regions of the map.