Reinforcement Learning Goal-Reaching Control with Guaranteed Lyapunov-Like Stabilizer for Mobile Robots

Reinforcement learning (RL) can be highly effective at learning goal-reaching policies, but it typically does not provide formal guarantees that the goal will always be reached. A common approach to provide formal goal-reaching guarantees is to introduce a shielding mechanism that restricts the agent to actions that satisfy predefined safety constraints. The main challenge here is integrating this mechanism with RL so that learning and exploration remain effective without becoming overly conservative. Hence, this paper proposes an RL-based control framework that provides formal goal-reaching guarantees for wheeled mobile robots operating in unstructured environments. We first design a real-time RL policy with a set of 15 carefully defined reward terms. These rewards encourage the robot to reach both static and dynamic goals while generating sufficiently smooth command signals that comply with predefined safety specifications, which is critical in practice. Second, a Lyapunov-like stabilizer layer is integrated into the benchmark RL framework as a policy supervisor to formally strengthen the goal-reaching control while preserving meaningful exploration of the state action space. The proposed framework is suitable for real-time deployment in challenging environments, as it provides a formal guarantee of convergence to the intended goal states and compensates for uncertainties by generating real-time control signals based on the current state, while respecting real-world motion constraints. The experimental results show that the proposed Lyapunov-like stabilizer consistently improves the benchmark RL policies, boosting the goal-reaching rate from 84.6% to 99.0%, sharply reducing failures, and improving efficiency.

Vision-based Goal-Reaching Control for Mobile Robots Using a Hierarchical Learning Framework

Reinforcement learning (RL) is effective in many robotic applications, but it requires extensive exploration of the state-action space, during which behaviors can be unsafe. This significantly limits its applicability to large robots with complex actuators operating on unstable terrain. Hence, to design a safe goal-reaching control framework for large-scale robots, this paper decomposes the whole system into a set of tightly coupled functional modules. 1) A real-time visual pose estimation approach is employed to provide accurate robot states to 2) an RL motion planner for goal-reaching tasks that explicitly respects robot specifications. The RL module generates real-time smooth motion commands for the actuator system, independent of its underlying dynamic complexity. 3) In the actuation mechanism, a supervised deep learning model is trained to capture the complex dynamics of the robot and provide this model to 4) a model-based robust adaptive controller that guarantees the wheels track the RL motion commands even on slip-prone terrain. 5) Finally, to reduce human intervention, a mathematical safety supervisor monitors the robot, stops it on unsafe faults, and autonomously guides it back to a safe inspection area. The proposed framework guarantees uniform exponential stability of the actuation system and safety of the whole operation. Experiments on a 6,000 kg robot in different scenarios confirm the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

NMPC-Augmented Visual Navigation and Safe Learning Control for Large-Scale Mobile Robots

A large-scale mobile robot (LSMR) is a high-order multibody system that often operates on loose, unconsolidated terrain, which reduces traction. This paper presents a comprehensive navigation and control framework for an LSMR that ensures stability and safety-defined performance, delivering robust operation on slip-prone terrain by jointly leveraging high-performance techniques. The proposed architecture comprises four main modules: (1) a visual pose-estimation module that fuses onboard sensors and stereo cameras to provide an accurate, low-latency robot pose, (2) a high-level nonlinear model predictive control that updates the wheel motion commands to correct robot drift from the robot reference pose on slip-prone terrain, (3) a low-level deep neural network control policy that approximates the complex behavior of the wheel-driven actuation mechanism in LSMRs, augmented with robust adaptive control to handle out-of-distribution disturbances, ensuring that the wheels accurately track the updated commands issued by high-level control module, and (4) a logarithmic safety module to monitor the entire robot stack and guarantees safe operation. The proposed low-level control framework guarantees uniform exponential stability of the actuation subsystem, while the safety module ensures the whole system-level safety during operation. Comparative experiments on a 6,000 kg LSMR actuated by two complex electro-hydrostatic drives, while synchronizing modules operating at different frequencies.

All-Electric Heavy-Duty Robotic Manipulator: Actuator Configuration Optimization and Sensorless Control

This paper presents a unified framework that integrates modeling, optimization, and sensorless control of an all-electric heavy-duty robotic manipulator (HDRM) driven by electromechanical linear actuators (EMLAs). An EMLA model is formulated to capture motor electromechanics and direction-dependent transmission efficiencies, while a mathematical model of the HDRM, incorporating both kinematics and dynamics, is established to generate joint-space motion profiles for prescribed TCP trajectories. A safety-ensured trajectory generator, tailored to this model, maps Cartesian goals to joint space while enforcing joint-limit and velocity margins. Based on the resulting force and velocity demands, a multi-objective Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) is employed to select the optimal EMLA configuration. To accelerate this optimization, a deep neural network, trained with EMLA parameters, is embedded in the optimization process to predict steady-state actuator efficiency from trajectory profiles. For the chosen EMLA design, a physics-informed Kriging surrogate, anchored to the analytic model and refined with experimental data, learns residuals of EMLA outputs to support force and velocity sensorless control. The actuator model is further embedded in a hierarchical virtual decomposition control (VDC) framework that outputs voltage commands. Experimental validation on a one-degree-of-freedom EMLA testbed confirms accurate trajectory tracking and effective sensorless control under varying loads.

Surrogate-Enhanced Modeling and Adaptive Modular Control of All-Electric Heavy-Duty Robotic Manipulators

This paper presents a unified system-level modeling and control framework for an all-electric heavy-duty robotic manipulator (HDRM) driven by electromechanical linear actuators (EMLAs). A surrogate-enhanced actuator model, combining integrated electromechanical dynamics with a neural network trained on a dedicated testbed, is integrated into an extended virtual decomposition control (VDC) architecture augmented by a natural adaptation law. The derived analytical HDRM model supports a hierarchical control structure that seamlessly maps high-level force and velocity objectives to real-time actuator commands, accompanied by a Lyapunov-based stability proof. In multi-domain simulations of both cubic and a custom planar triangular trajectory, the proposed adaptive modular controller achieves sub-centimeter Cartesian tracking accuracy. Experimental validation of the same 1-DoF platform under realistic load emulation confirms the efficacy of the proposed control strategy. These findings demonstrate that a surrogate-enhanced EMLA model embedded in the VDC approach can enable modular, real-time control of an all-electric HDRM, supporting its deployment in next-generation mobile working machines.

Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Motion Planning and PDE Control for Flexible Manipulators

This article presents a motion planning and control framework for flexible robotic manipulators, integrating deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with a nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) controller. Unlike conventional approaches that focus solely on control, we demonstrate that the desired trajectory significantly influences endpoint vibrations. To address this, a DRL motion planner, trained using the soft actor-critic (SAC) algorithm, generates optimized trajectories that inherently minimize vibrations. The PDE nonlinear controller then computes the required torques to track the planned trajectory while ensuring closed-loop stability using Lyapunov analysis. The proposed methodology is validated through both simulations and real-world experiments, demonstrating superior vibration suppression and tracking accuracy compared to traditional methods. The results underscore the potential of combining learning-based motion planning with model-based control for enhancing the precision and stability of flexible robotic manipulators.

Robust Immersive Bilateral Teleoperation of Dissimilar Systems with Enhanced Transparency and Sense of Embodiment

In human-in-the-loop systems such as teleoperation, especially those involving heavy-duty manipulators, achieving high task performance requires both robust control and strong human engagement. This paper presents a bilateral teleoperation framework that enhances the operator's Sense of Embodiment (SoE), specifically, the senses of agency and self-location, through an immersive virtual reality interface and distributed haptic feedback via an exoskeleton. To support this embodiment and stablish high level of motion and force transparency, we develop a force-sensorless, robust control architecture that tackles input nonlinearities, master-slave asymmetries, unknown uncertainties, and arbitrary time delays. A human-robot augmented dynamic model is integrated into the control loop to enhance human-adaptability of the controller. Theoretical analysis confirms semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop system. Extensive real-world experiments demonstrate high accuracy tracking under up to 1:13 motion scaling and 1:1000 force scaling, showcasing the significance of the results. Additionally, the stability-transparency tradeoff for motion tracking and force reflection-tracking is establish up to 150 ms of one-way fix and time-varying communication delay. The results of user study with 10 participants (9 male and 1 female) demonstrated that the system can imply a good level of SoE (76.4%), at the same time is very user friendly with no gender limitation. These results are significant given the scale and weight of the heavy-duty manipulators.

LiDAR-Inertial SLAM-Based Navigation and Safety-Oriented AI-Driven Control System for Skid-Steer Robots

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and stochastic technologies into the mobile robot navigation and control (MRNC) framework while adhering to rigorous safety standards presents significant challenges. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a comprehensively integrated MRNC framework for skid-steer wheeled mobile robots (SSWMRs), in which all components are actively engaged in real-time execution. The framework comprises: 1) a LiDAR-inertial simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm for estimating the current pose of the robot within the built map; 2) an effective path-following control system for generating desired linear and angular velocity commands based on the current pose and the desired pose; 3) inverse kinematics for transferring linear and angular velocity commands into left and right side velocity commands; and 4) a robust AI-driven (RAID) control system incorporating a radial basis function network (RBFN) with a new adaptive algorithm to enforce in-wheel actuation systems to track each side motion commands. To further meet safety requirements, the proposed RAID control within the MRNC framework of the SSWMR constrains AI-generated tracking performance within predefined overshoot and steady-state error limits, while ensuring robustness and system stability by compensating for modeling errors, unknown RBF weights, and external forces. Experimental results verify the proposed MRNC framework performance for a 4,836 kg SSWMR operating on soft terrain.

Desired Impedance Allocation for Robotic Systems

Virtual Decomposition Control (VDC) has emerged as a powerful modular framework for real-world robotic control, particularly in contact-rich tasks. Despite its widespread use, VDC has been fundamentally limited to first-order impedance allocation, inherently neglecting the desired inertia due to the mathematical complexity of second-order behavior allocation. However, inertia is crucial, not only for shaping dynamic responses during contact phases, but also for enabling smooth acceleration and deceleration in trajectory tracking. Motivated by the growing demand for high-fidelity interaction control, this work introduces, for the first time in the VDC framework, a method to realize second-order impedance behavior. By redefining the required end-effector velocity and introducing a required acceleration and a pseudo-impedance term, we achieve second-order impedance control while preserving the modularity of VDC. Rigorous stability analysis confirms the robustness of the proposed controller. Experimental validation on a 7-degree-of-freedom haptic exoskeleton demonstrates superior tracking and contact performance compared to first-order methods. Notably, incorporating inertia enables stable interaction with environments up to 70% stiffer, highlighting the effectiveness of the approach in real-world contact-rich scenarios.

Anti-Slip AI-Driven Model-Free Control with Global Exponential Stability in Skid-Steering Robots

Undesired lateral and longitudinal wheel slippage can disrupt a mobile robot's heading angle, traction, and, eventually, desired motion. This issue makes the robotization and accurate modeling of heavy-duty machinery very challenging because the application primarily involves off-road terrains, which are susceptible to uneven motion and severe slippage. As a step toward robotization in skid-steering heavy-duty robot (SSHDR), this paper aims to design an innovative robust model-free control system developed by neural networks to strongly stabilize the robot dynamics in the presence of a broad range of potential wheel slippages. Before the control design, the dynamics of the SSHDR are first investigated by mathematically incorporating slippage effects, assuming that all functional modeling terms of the system are unknown to the control system. Then, a novel tracking control framework to guarantee global exponential stability of the SSHDR is designed as follows: 1) the unknown modeling of wheel dynamics is approximated using radial basis function neural networks (RBFNNs); and 2) a new adaptive law is proposed to compensate for slippage effects and tune the weights of the RBFNNs online during execution. Simulation and experimental results verify the proposed tracking control performance of a 4,836 kg SSHDR operating on slippery terrain.