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Foundations of Robotics Seminar, November 8, 2011
Time
and Place | Seminar Abstract
Motion planning and optimal control of robotic systems: reconfigurable
spacecraft and aerial vehicles
Marin Kobilarov
Control and Dynamic Systems
California Institute of Technology
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
GHC 2109
Talk 4:30 pm
The talk examines challenges in the motion control of autonomous
systems operating in constrained environments. We discuss two
applications under development: autonomous reconfiguration of distributed
spacecraft subject to orbital environment constraints; unmanned ground
and aerial robotic vehicles navigating optimally through an obstacle terrain.
Improved computational theory and control algorithms required for such
systems, and more generally for nonlinear control systems found in
robotics and aerospace, will be discussed. Simulating and optimizing
their motion is addressed in terms of geometric computational optimal
control methods on manifolds. An algorithmic optimization framework
for systems with symmetries such as rigid multi-body assemblies and
robotic locomotion systems is developed. In addition, the complexity
of high-dimensional systems operating among environmental obstacles,
is addressed in terms of random sampling methods for global
motion planning. In addition to standard state space sampling-based we employ
adaptive sampling in trajectory space by optimally exploiting
the collected information about the problem. This new approach to the
control of complex systems results in not only the ability to quickly
find a feasible solution but to find an approximately optimal one with
high probability. We will show promising ongoing application of these
algorithms to autonomous vehicles.
Marin Kobilarov is a post-doctoral fellow in Control and
Dynamical Systems at Caltech and is affiliated with the Keck Institute for
Space Studies. He is interested in computational control methods
that exploit the geometric structure of nonlinear dynamics, and approximation
methods for optimization and motion planning. He develops autonomous vehicles
with applications in robotics and aerospace.
The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.