2023

Collision Cone Control Barrier Functions: Experimental Validation on UGVs for Kinematic Obstacle Avoidance

Goswami, Bhavya Giri, Tayal, Manan, Rajgopal, Karthik et al.

Understand

Autonomy advances have enabled robots in diverse environments and close human interaction, necessitating controllers with formal safety guarantees.

  • This paper introduces an experimental platform designed for the validation and demonstration of a novel class of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) tailored for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to proactively prevent collisions with kinematic obstacles by integrating the concept of collision cones.
  • While existing CBF formulations excel with static obstacles, extensions to torque/acceleration-controlled unicycle and bicycle models have seen limited success.
  • Conventional CBF applications in nonholonomic UGV models have demonstrated control conservatism, particularly in scenarios where steering/thrust control was deemed infeasible.

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