This paper investigates the task-driven exploration of unknown environments with mobile sensors communicating compressed measurements. The sensors explore the area and transmit their compressed data to another robot, assisting it in reaching a goal location. We propose a novel communication framework and a tractable multi-agent exploration algorithm to select the sensors' actions. The algorithm uses a task-driven measure of uncertainty, resulting from map compression, as a reward function. We validate the efficacy of our algorithm through numerical simulations conducted on a realistic map and compare it with two alternative approaches. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm effectively decreases the time required for the robot to reach its target without causing excessive load on the communication network.

Desensitization addresses safe optimal planning under parametric uncertainties by providing sensitivity function-based risk estimates. This paper expands upon the existing work on desensitization in optimal control to address safe planning for a class of two-player differential games. In the proposed game, parametric uncertainties correspond to variations of the model parameters for each player about their nominal values. The two players in the proposed formulation are assumed to have perfect information about these nominal parameter values. However, it is assumed that only one of the players has complete knowledge of the actual parameter value, resulting in information asymmetry in the proposed game. This lack of knowledge regarding the parameter variations is expected to result in state constraint violations for the player with an information disadvantage. In this regard, a desensitized feedback strategy that provides safe trajectories is proposed for the player with incomplete information. The proposed feedback strategy is evaluated for instances involving a single pursuer and a single evader with an uncertain moving obstacle, where the pursuer is assumed to only know the nominal value of the obstacle's speed. At the same time, the evader knows the obstacle's true speed, and also the fact that the pursuer knows only the nominal value of the obstacle's speed. Subsequently, deceptive strategies are proposed for the evader, who has an information advantage, and these strategies are assessed against the pursuer's desensitized strategy.

Deep learning has revolutionized autonomous driving by enabling vehicles to perceive and interpret their surroundings with remarkable accuracy. This progress is attributed to various deep learning models, including Mediated Perception, Behavior Reflex, and Direct Perception, each offering unique advantages and challenges in enhancing autonomous driving capabilities. However, there is a gap in research addressing integrating these approaches and understanding their relevance in diverse driving scenarios. This study introduces three distinct neural network models corresponding to Mediated Perception, Behavior Reflex, and Direct Perception approaches. We explore their significance across varying driving conditions, shedding light on the strengths and limitations of each approach. Our architecture fuses information from the base, future latent vector prediction, and auxiliary task networks, using global routing commands to select appropriate action sub-networks. We aim to provide insights into effectively utilizing diverse modeling strategies in autonomous driving by conducting experiments and evaluations. The results show that the ensemble model performs better than the individual approaches, suggesting that each modality contributes uniquely toward the performance of the overall model. Moreover, by exploring the significance of each modality, this study offers a roadmap for future research in autonomous driving, emphasizing the importance of leveraging multiple models to achieve robust performance.

Merging into dense highway traffic for an autonomous vehicle is a complex decision-making task, wherein the vehicle must identify a potential gap and coordinate with surrounding human drivers, each of whom may exhibit diverse driving behaviors. Many existing methods consider other drivers to be dynamic obstacles and, as a result, are incapable of capturing the full intent of the human drivers via this passive planning. In this paper, we propose a novel dual control framework based on Model Predictive Path-Integral control to generate interactive trajectories. This framework incorporates a Bayesian inference approach to actively learn the agents' parameters, i.e., other drivers' model parameters. The proposed framework employs a sampling-based approach that is suitable for real-time implementation through the utilization of GPUs. We illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed methodology through comprehensive numerical simulations conducted in both high and low-fidelity simulation scenarios focusing on autonomous on-ramp merging.

This paper addresses the problem of the communication of optimally compressed information for mobile robot path-planning. In this context, mobile robots compress their current local maps to assist another robot in reaching a target in an unknown environment. We propose a framework that sequentially selects the optimal compression, guided by the robot's path, by balancing the map resolution and communication cost. Our approach is tractable in close-to-real scenarios and does not necessitate prior environment knowledge. We design a novel decoder that leverages compressed information to estimate the unknown environment via convex optimization with linear constraints and an encoder that utilizes the decoder to select the optimal compression. Numerical simulations are conducted in a large close-to-real map and a maze map and compared with two alternative approaches. The results confirm the effectiveness of our framework in assisting the robot reach its target by reducing transmitted information, on average, by approximately 50% while maintaining satisfactory performance.

In this work, we introduce a new graph search algorithm, lazy edged based A* (LEA*), for robot motion planning. By using an edge queue and exploiting the idea of lazy search, LEA* is optimally vertex efficient similar to A*, and has improved edge efficiency compared to A*. LEA* is simple and easy to implement with minimum modification to A*, resulting in a very small overhead compared to previous lazy search algorithms. We also explore the effect of inflated heuristics, which results in the weighted LEA* (wLEA*). We show that the edge efficiency of wLEA* becomes close to LazySP and, thus is near-optimal. We test LEA* and wLEA* on 2D planning problems and planning of a 7-DOF manipulator. We perform a thorough comparison with previous algorithms by considering sparse, medium, and cluttered random worlds and small, medium, and large graph sizes. Our results show that LEA* and wLEA* are the fastest algorithms to find the plan compared to previous algorithms.

This paper proposes a new sampling-based kinodynamic motion planning algorithm, called FMT*PFF, for nonlinear systems. It exploits the novel idea of dimensionality reduction using partial-final-state-free (PFF) optimal controllers.With the proposed dimensionality reduction heuristic, the search space is restricted within a subspace, thus faster convergence is achieved compared to a regular kinodynamic FMT*. The dimensionality reduction heuristic can be viewed as a sampling strategy and asymptotic optimality is preserved when combined with uniform full-state sampling. Another feature of FMT*PFF is the ability to deal with a steering function with inexact steering, which is vital when using learning-based steering functions. Learning-based methods allow us to solve the steering problem for nonlinear systems efficiently. However, learning-based methods often fail to reach the exact goal state. For nonlinear systems, we train a neural network controller using supervised learning to generate the steering commands. We show that FMT*PFF with a learning-based steering function is efficient and generates dynamically feasible motion plans. We compare our algorithm with previous algorithms and show superior performance in various simulations.

Autonomous driving has received a great deal of attention in the automotive industry and is often seen as the future of transportation. The development of autonomous driving technology has been greatly accelerated by the growth of end-to-end machine learning techniques that have been successfully used for perception, planning, and control tasks. An important aspect of autonomous driving planning is knowing how the environment evolves in the immediate future and taking appropriate actions. An autonomous driving system should effectively use the information collected from the various sensors to form an abstract representation of the world to maintain situational awareness. For this purpose, deep learning models can be used to learn compact latent representations from a stream of incoming data. However, most deep learning models are trained end-to-end and do not incorporate any prior knowledge (e.g., from physics) of the vehicle in the architecture. In this direction, many works have explored physics-infused neural network (PINN) architectures to infuse physics models during training. Inspired by this observation, we present a Kalman filter augmented recurrent neural network architecture to learn the latent representation of the traffic flow using front camera images only. We demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed model in both imitation and reinforcement learning settings using both simulated and real-world datasets. The results show that incorporating an explicit model of the vehicle (states estimated using Kalman filtering) in the end-to-end learning significantly increases performance.

In this work, we propose the Informed Batch Belief Trees (IBBT) algorithm for motion planning under motion and sensing uncertainties. The original stochastic motion planning problem is divided into a deterministic motion planning problem and a graph search problem. We solve the deterministic planning problem using sampling-based methods such as PRM or RRG to construct a graph of nominal trajectories. Then, an informed cost-to-go heuristic for the original problem is computed based on the nominal trajectory graph. Finally, we grow a belief tree by searching over the graph using the proposed heuristic. IBBT interleaves between batch state sampling, nominal trajectory graph construction, heuristic computing, and search over the graph to find belief space motion plans. IBBT is an anytime, incremental algorithm. With an increasing number of batches of samples added to the graph, the algorithm finds motion plans that converge to the optimal one. IBBT is efficient by reusing results between sequential iterations. The belief tree searching is an ordered search guided by an informed heuristic. We test IBBT in different planning environments. Our numerical investigation confirms that IBBT finds non-trivial motion plans and is faster compared with previous similar methods.

In this work, we develop the Batch Belief Trees (BBT) algorithm for motion planning under motion and sensing uncertainties. The algorithm interleaves between batch sampling, building a graph of nominal trajectories in the state space, and searching over the graph to find belief space motion plans. By searching over the graph, BBT finds sophisticated plans that will visit (and revisit) information-rich regions to reduce uncertainty. One of the key benefits of this algorithm is the modified interplay between exploration and exploitation. Instead of an exhaustive search (exploitation) after one exploration step, the proposed algorithm uses batch samples to explore the state space and, in addition, does not require exhaustive search before the next iteration of batch sampling, which adds flexibility.The algorithm finds motion plans that converge to the optimal one as more samples are added to the graph. We test BBT in different planning environments. Our numerical investigation confirms that BBT finds non-trivial motion plans and is faster compared with previous similar methods.