Guaranteeing Safe Behavior for Real-World Control Systems

with Tamas Molnar, Wichita State University
Tuesday, February 11, 10:00 – 11:00 AM
310 Kelly Hall

The deployment of autonomous systems – such as robotic systems or automated vehicles – requires that they are controlled to operate safely, preferably with guarantees or certificates of safe behavior. The goal of this talk is to use nonlinear control techniques to achieve provably safe behavior on real-world control systems like robotic systems and automated vehicles. I establish a control framework that endows these systems with formal safety guarantees by using simplified dynamical models and control barrier function theory. I address robustness against the discrepancies between the systems and their models, including disturbances and time delays. I demonstrate the applicability of this method through executing collision-free motions on a wide variety of systems, including legged, wheeled and flying robots, manipulators, aerial and ground vehicles, in both simulation and experiments. This work demonstrates the potential of nonlinear control theory to provide guaranteed safe behavior in real-world applications, that ultimately facilitates the safe and efficient operation of autonomous systems.

Tamas Molnar is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the Wichita State University since 2023 fall. Beforehand, he held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology (2020-2023) and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2018-2020). He received his PhD (2018) and MSc (2015) in Mechanical Engineering and his BSc (2013) in Mechatronics Engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary. His research interests include nonlinear dynamics and control, safety-critical control, and time delay systems with applications to connected automated vehicles, robotic systems, and autonomous systems.

Host:  Kevin Kochersberger