Viability Envelopes

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Viability Envelopes

• Maciej Kalisiak
• Michiel van de Panne

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Idea and Motivation

• exploring pushing the envelope metaphor
• i.e., operating at/near (safe) limits
• have the computer enforce safety
• task contain system state in envelope
• viability theory too general, abstract
• our work concrete, implementable solution

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Envelope example rocket

• Xout Xf ? Xfi
• Xin Xop ? Xur
• want to operate in Xop
• ... or at least Xin

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Containment 1-step

• idea override user input if it breaches envelope
  in 1 time step
• limited usefulness sharp corrections

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Containment multi-step

• idea look further ahead
• advantages
• milder corrections
• useful info for haptics, allows guidance
• more robust with approximate envelopes

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Practical Trade-offs

• approximate envelope using Nearest Neighbor
• discretize control space

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Results

• rocket (2D)
• car on straight road (2D)
• bicycle balance (2D)
• car in arbitrary terrain (3D)

show movies externally
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Future work

• more complex systems
• local-only knowledge of terrain
• building block, archetype envelopes
• explore how best to use with haptics

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