Target following with motion prediction for unmanned surface vehicle operating in cluttered environments

The capability of following a moving target in an environment with obstacles is required as a basic and necessary function for realizing an autonomous unmanned surface vehicle (USV). Many target following scenarios involve a follower and target vehicles that may have different maneuvering capabilities. Moreover, the follower vehicle may not have prior information about the intended motion of the target boat. This paper presents a trajectory planning and tracking approach for following a differentially constrained target vehicle operating in an obstacle field. The developed approach includes a novel algorithm for computing a desired pose and surge speed in the vicinity of the target boat, jointly defined as a motion goal, and tightly integrates it with trajectory planning and tracking components of the entire system. The trajectory planner generates a dynamically feasible, collision-free trajectory to allow the USV to safely reach the computed motion goal. Trajectory planning needs to be sufficiently fast and yet produce dynamically feasible and short trajectories due to the moving target. This required speeding up the planning by searching for trajectories through a hybrid, pose-position state space using a multi-resolution control action set. The search in the velocity space is decoupled from the search for a trajectory in the pose space. Therefore, the underlying trajectory tracking controller computes desired surge speed for each segment of the trajectory and ensures that the USV maintains it. We have carried out simulation as well as experimental studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed approach.     

基于改进DWA的多无人水面艇分布式避碰算法

针对多艘无人水面艇(USV)相遇自主避碰问题,考虑可能存在异常行驶的USV,基于改进动态窗口法(DWA)提出一种包含碰撞风险检测和行驶职责划分的分布式避碰算法.首先,引入障碍物预测轨迹和权重因子改进传统DWA的距离评价函数,提高USV躲避多个动态障碍物的能力,同时,结合国际海上避碰规则(COLREGS)引入新的规则评价函数约束USV的避让动作;然后,引入期望速度和航向改进现有碰撞风险检测算法,减少因碰撞风险变化导致的轨迹波动;接着,针对COLREGS仅规定两船相遇时的行驶职责划分问题,提出一种考虑异常USV的多USV职责划分方法;最后,基于Matlab实现多USV相遇自主避碰仿真.实验结果表明,即使存在异常USV,分布式避碰算法依旧保证正常USV能够作出符合COLREGS的安全避让动作.     

非时间参考的机器人路径规划与控制方法

本文面向非结构化环境,针对传统的基于时间的规划方法的不足,提出了一种非时间参考的 机器人路径规划方法;并根据该规划的特点,设计了相应的控制算法．在这种规划方法下, 机器人遇到障碍时能自动停止运动,而当障碍物被清除后,又能沿以前的规划继续运动,避 免了系统所受到的损害和任务的重规划,提高了系统处理不确定事件的能力．     

Efficient solutions to factored MDPs with imprecise transition probabilities

When modeling real-world decision-theoretic planning problems in the Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework, it is often impossible to obtain a completely accurate estimate of transition probabilities. For example, natural uncertainty arises in the transition specification due to elicitation of MDP transition models from an expert or estimation from data, or non-stationary transition distributions arising from insufficient state knowledge. In the interest of obtaining the most robust policy under transition uncertainty, the Markov Decision Process with Imprecise Transition Probabilities (MDP-IPs) has been introduced to model such scenarios. Unfortunately, while various solution algorithms exist for MDP-IPs, they often require external calls to optimization routines and thus can be extremely time-consuming in practice. To address this deficiency, we introduce the factored MDP-IP and propose efficient dynamic programming methods to exploit its structure. Noting that the key computational bottleneck in the solution of factored MDP-IPs is the need to repeatedly solve nonlinear constrained optimization problems, we show how to target approximation techniques to drastically reduce the computational overhead of the nonlinear solver while producing bounded, approximately optimal solutions. Our results show up to two orders of magnitude speedup in comparison to traditional “flat” dynamic programming approaches and up to an order of magnitude speedup over the extension of factored MDP approximate value iteration techniques to MDP-IPs while producing the lowest error of any approximation algorithm evaluated.     

Resolution-adaptive risk-aware trajectory planning for surface vehicles operating in congested civilian traffic

The growing variety and complexity of marine research and application oriented tasks requires unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to operate fully autonomously over long time horizons even in environments with significant civilian traffic. In order to address this challenge, we have developed a lattice-based 5D trajectory planner for USVs. The planner estimates collision risk and reasons about the availability of contingency maneuvers to counteract unpredictable behaviors of civilian vessels. The planner also incorporates avoidance behaviors of the vessels into the search for a dynamically feasible trajectory to minimize collision risk. In order to be computationally efficient, it dynamically scales the control action primitives of a trajectory based on the distribution and concentration of civilian vessels while preserving the dynamical feasibility of the primitives. We present a novel congestion metric to compare the complexity of different scenarios when evaluating the performance of the planner. Our results demonstrate that the basic version of the risk and contingency-aware planner (RCAP) significantly decreases the number of collisions compared to a baseline, velocity obstacles based planner, especially in complex scenarios with a high number of civilian vessels. The adaptive version of the planner (A-RCAP) improves the computational performance of RCAP by 500 %. This leads to a high replanning rate, which allows shorter traversal distances and smaller arrival times, while ensuring comparable incidence of collisions.     

Faults prognosis using partially observed stochastic Petri-nets: an incremental approach

This article deals with the problem of fault prognosis in stochastic discrete event systems. For that purpose, partially observed stochastic Petri nets are considered to model the system with its sensors. The model represents both healthy and faulty behaviors of the system. Our goal is, based on a timed measurement trajectory issued from the sensors, to compute the probability that a fault will occur in a future time interval. To this end, a procedure based on an incremental algorithm is proposed to compute the set of consistent behaviors of the system. Based on the measurement dates, the probabilities of the consistent trajectories are evaluated and a state estimation is obtained as a consequence. From the set of possible current states and their probabilities, a method to evaluate the probability of future faults is developed using a probabilistic model. An example is presented to illustrate the results.     

Human-robot collaboration while sharing production activities in dynamic environment: SPADER system

Interactive robot doing collaborative work in hybrid work cell need adaptive trajectory planning strategy. Indeed, systems must be able to generate their own trajectories without colliding with dynamic obstacles like humans and assembly components moving inside the robot workspace. The aim of this paper is to improve collision-free motion planning in dynamic environment in order to insure human safety during collaborative tasks such as sharing production activities between human and robot. Our system proposes a trajectory generating method for an industrial manipulator in a shared workspace. A neural network using a supervised learning is applied to create the waypoints required for dynamic obstacles avoidance. These points are linked with a quintic polynomial function for smooth motion which is optimized using least-square to compute an optimal trajectory. Moreover, the evaluation of human motion forms has been taken into consideration in the proposed strategy. According to the results, the proposed approach is an effective solution for trajectories generation in a dynamic environment like a hybrid workspace.     

Inevitable collision states — a step towards safer robots?

An inevitable collision state for a robotic system can be defined as a state for which, no matter what the future trajectory followed by the system is, a collision with an obstacle eventually occurs. An inevitable collision state takes into account the dynamics of both the system and the obstacles, fixed or moving. The main contribution of this paper is to lay down and explore this novel concept (and the companion concept of inevitable collision obstacle). Formal definitions of the inevitable collision states and obstacles are given. Properties fundamental for their characterization are established. This concept is very general, and can be useful both for navigation and motion planning purposes (for its own safety, a robotic system should never find itself in an inevitable collision state). To illustrate the interest of this concept, it is applied to a problem of safe motion planning for a robotic system subject to sensing constraints in a partially known environment (i.e. that may contain unexpected obstacles). In safe motion planning, the issue is to compute motions for which it is guaranteed that, no matter what happens at execution time, the robotic system never finds itself in a situation where there is no way for it to avoid collision with an unexpected obstacle.     

A quadratic-cost dual control-based approach for optimal trajectory planning under uncertainty

This paper presents a dual control-based approach for optimal trajectory planning under uncertainty. The method approximately converts a nonlinear stochastic optimal control problem whose objective function is a combination of quadratic stage and/or terminal costs, with additive Gaussian process and measurement noises, into a deterministic optimal control problem by augmenting the uncertainty state defined by the square-root of the estimation error covariance matrix. The open-loop solution to the resulting deterministic optimal control reformulation is obtained using an existing pseudo-spectral method. The effectiveness of the proposed dual control-based approach is verified with two numerical examples of trajectory planning for two-dimensional robot motion with lack of observability for localization, which highlights the impact of the dual effect on the shape of designed paths.

     

Probabilistically safe motion planning to avoid dynamic obstacles with uncertain motion patterns

This paper presents a real-time path planning algorithm that guarantees probabilistic feasibility for autonomous robots with uncertain dynamics operating amidst one or more dynamic obstacles with uncertain motion patterns. Planning safe trajectories under such conditions requires both accurate prediction and proper integration of future obstacle behavior within the planner. Given that available observation data is limited, the motion model must provide generalizable predictions that satisfy dynamic and environmental constraints, a limitation of existing approaches. This work presents a novel solution, named RR-GP, which builds a learned motion pattern model by combining the flexibility of Gaussian processes (GP) with the efficiency of RRT-Reach, a sampling-based reachability computation. Obstacle trajectory GP predictions are conditioned on dynamically feasible paths identified from the reachability analysis, yielding more accurate predictions of future behavior. RR-GP predictions are integrated with a robust path planner, using chance-constrained RRT, to identify probabilistically feasible paths. Theoretical guarantees of probabilistic feasibility are shown for linear systems under Gaussian uncertainty; approximations for nonlinear dynamics and/or non-Gaussian uncertainty are also presented. Simulations demonstrate that, with this planner, an autonomous vehicle can safely navigate a complex environment in real-time while significantly reducing the risk of collisions with dynamic obstacles.     

一种基于离散化位姿的月球车运动规划方法

针对障碍环境下具有非完整约束月球车的运动规划问题,提出了一种基于离散化位姿的月球车运动规划方法。该方法首先将月球车的运动轨迹限定于多项式旋线,通过求解多项式旋线参数生成无障碍条件下连接任意位姿状态的运动轨迹。同时,该方法对月球车运动规划问题中的位姿状态空间进行离散化,形成离散化的位姿状态空间。根据离散化位姿状态空间的特点,在离线的条件下生成连接相邻离散位姿的月球车基本的运动轨迹集。最后该方法结合基本运动轨迹集并利用启发式搜索算法最终解决障碍条件下的运动规划问题。基于动力学仿真平台中的实验结果验证了该方法的正确性和有效性。     

Trajectory time scaling of a mobile robot to avoid dynamic obstacles on the basis of the INLVO

To ensure the collision safety of mobile robots, the velocity of dynamic obstacles should be considered while planning the robot’s trajectory for high-speed navigation tasks. A planning scheme that computes the collision avoidance trajectory by assuming static obstacles may result in obstacle collisions owing to the relative velocities of dynamic obstacles. This article proposes a trajectory time-scaling scheme that considers the velocities of dynamic obstacles. The proposed inverse nonlinear velocity obstacle (INLVO) is used to compute the nonlinear velocity obstacle based on the known trajectory of the mobile robot. The INLVO can be used to obtain the boundary conditions required to avoid a dynamic obstacle. The simulation results showed that the proposed scheme can deal with typical collision states within a short period of time. The proposed scheme is advantageous because it can be applied to conventional trajectory planning schemes without high computational costs. In addition, the proposed scheme for avoiding dynamic obstacles can be used without an accurate prediction of the obstacle trajectories owing to the fast generation of the time-scaling trajectory.     

Adaptive sampling for generalized probabilistic roadmaps

In this paper,an adaptive sampling strategy is presented for the generalized sampling-based motion planner,generalized probabilistic roadmap (GPRM).These planners are designed to account for stochastic...     

A Sequential Bi-criteria Search Algorithm for Robot Path Planning in the Box Pushing Problem

The collision-free trajectory planning method subject to control constraints for mobile manipulators is presented. The robot task is to move from the current configuration to a given final position in the workspace. The motions are planned in order to maximise an instantaneous manipulability measure to avoid manipulator singularities. Inequality constraints on state variables i.e. collision avoidance conditions and mechanical constraints are taken into consideration. The collision avoidance is accomplished by local perturbation of the mobile manipulator motion in the obstacles neighbourhood. The fulfilment of mechanical constraints is ensured by using a penalty function approach. The proposed method guarantees satisfying control limitations resulting from capabilities of robot actuators by applying the trajectory scaling approach. Nonholonomic constraints in a Pfaffian form are explicitly incorporated into the control algorithm. A computer example involving a mobile manipulator consisting of nonholonomic platform (2,0) class and 3DOF RPR type holonomic manipulator operating in a three-dimensional task space is also presented.     

Detection of robustly collision-free trajectories in unpredictable environments in real-time

One of the ultimate goals in robotics is to make robots of high degrees of freedom (DOF) work autonomously in real world environments. However, real world environments are unpredictable, i.e., how the objects move are usually not known beforehand. Thus, whether a robot trajectory is collision-free or not has to be checked on-line based on sensing as the robot moves. Moreover, in order to guarantee safe motion, the motion uncertainty of the robot has to be taken into account. This paper introduces a general approach to detect if a high-DOF robot trajectory is continuously collision-free even in the presence of robot motion uncertainty in an unpredictable environment in real time. Our method is based on the novel concept of dynamic envelope, which takes advantage of progressive sensing over time without predicting motions of objects in an environment or assuming specific object motion patterns. The introduced approach can be used by general real-time motion planners to check if a candidate robot trajectory is continuously and robustly collision-free (i.e., in spite of uncertainty in the robot motion).     

基于时空感知增强的深度Q网络无人水面艇局部路径规划

无人水面艇局部路径规划在海事救援、海洋运输等领域中发挥着重要的作用。现有局部路径规划算法在简单场景中取得了不错的效果,但面对环境中存在的复杂障碍物和海流干扰时,性能表现较差。为此,提出了一种基于时空感知增强的深度Q网络强化学习算法,首先,引入多尺度空间注意力模块捕捉距离传感器的多尺度空间信息,提升了复杂障碍物环境的感知能力;其次,利用基于长短时记忆网络的海流感知模块提取海流干扰环境的时间序列特征,增强了对海流干扰的感知能力;此外,对无人水面艇传感器和运动模型进行了模拟,并设计了强化学习状态空间、动作空间和基于方向导引的奖励函数,提升了算法的导航性能和收敛速度。在复杂仿真场景中进行了实验,结果表明,所提算法相比于原始算法在导航成功率和平均到达时间两个指标上均得到了提升,算法表现出较强的复杂环境适应性。     

Dynamic Motion Planning for Mobile Robots Using Potential Field Method

The potential field method is widely used for autonomous mobile robot path planning due to its elegant mathematical analysis and simplicity. However, most researches have been focused on solving the motion planning problem in a stationary environment where both targets and obstacles are stationary. This paper proposes a new potential field method for motion planning of mobile robots in a dynamic environment where the target and the obstacles are moving. Firstly, the new potential function and the corresponding virtual force are defined. Then, the problem of local minima is discussed. Finally, extensive computer simulations and hardware experiments are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the dynamic motion planning schemes based on the new potential field method.     

空间机器人随机故障容错规划的蜜蜂算法

本文为解决复杂的随机规划问题设计了一种基于随机模拟的混沌量子蜜蜂算法,证明了该算法的收敛 性,并分析了算法的收敛速度．分析6 自由度空间机器人系统的不确定性,采用基于微分变换法进行误差分析,建 立了随机数学规划模型．为涉及故障前后运动学与动力学约束限制的容错轨迹规划,以加权最小驱动力矩为优化性 能指标,采用混沌量子蜜蜂算法求解全部工作时间中机械臂故障前后的最优轨迹．通过降低异常关节的运动速度来 降低故障关节力矩,保证机械臂在发生故障后具有较高的操作能力．案例研究验证了该算法的有效性、稳定性及准 确性．     

Periodic Motion Planning and Control for Double Rotary Pendulum via Virtual Holonomic Constraints

Periodic motion planning for an under-actuated system is rather difficult due to differential dynamic constraints imposed by passive dynamics, and it becomes more difficult for a system with higher underactuation degree, that is with a higher difference between the number of degrees of freedom and the number of independent control inputs. However, from another point of view, these constraints also mean some relation between state variables and could be used in the motion planning.We consider a double rotary pendulum, which has an underactuation degree 2. A novel periodic motion planning is presented based on an optimization search. A necessary condition for existence of the whole periodic trajectory is given because of the higher underactuation degree of the system. Moreover this condition is given to make virtual holonomic constraint (VHC) based control design feasible. Therefore, an initial guess for the optimization of planning a feasible periodic motion is based on this necessary condition. Then, VHCs are used for the system transformation and transverse linearization is used to design a static state feedback controller with periodic matrix function gain. The controller gain is found through another optimization procedure. The effectiveness of initial guess and performance of the closed-loop system are illustrated through numerical simulations.