# Motion Planning around Obstacles with Convex Optimization

Tobia Marcucci*, Mark Petersen*, David von Wrangel, Russ Tedrake*. In preparation.

# Shortest Paths in Graphs of Convex Sets

Tobia Marcucci, Jack Umenberger, Pablo Parrilo, Russ Tedrake. Shortest Paths in Graphs of Convex Sets. On arxiv.  Submitting to TAC (hopefully this week).

## Shortest Paths on Graphs of Convex Sets

is the convex relaxation.  (it's tight!)

## Example: "Footstep planning" with $$x_{n+1}=Ax_n + Bu_n$$

Previous best formulations New formulation
Lower Bound
(from convex relaxation)
7% of MICP 80% of MICP

Collision-free planning with dynamic constraints

IRIS (Fast approximate convex segmentation)

• Iteration between (large-scale) quadratic program and (relatively compact) semi-definite program (SDP)
• Scales to high dimensions, millions of obstacles
• ... enough to work on raw sensor data
• Guaranteed collision-free along dynamic trajectories
• Complete/globally optimal within convex decomposition

## Non-smooth mechanics of contact

Contact forces are

• discontinuous (or stiff) -- no force unless we have contact.
• set-valued (e.g. Coulomb friction)

$$\Rightarrow$$ Piecewise-affine or mixed logical-dynamical systems (MLDS)

• Physics-based (time-stepping)
• Deep models (e.g. w/ ReLU and max pooling)

## Down to the essence

• Vertices $$V$$
• (Directed) edges $$E$$

• For each $$i \in V:$$
• Compact convex set $$X_i \subset \R^d$$
• A point $$x_i \in X_i$$

## Down to the essence

• Edge length given by a convex function $\ell(x_i, x_j)$
• Shortest path, $$P:$$ $\min_P \min_{(x_i)_{i \in P}} \sum_{(i,j) \in P} \ell(x_i,x_j).$

• Can also add constraints on $$x_i, x_j$$.

## Traditional Shortest Path as a Linear Program (LP)

$$\varphi_{ij} = 1$$ if the edge $$(i,j)$$ in shortest path, otherwise $$\varphi_{ij} = 0.$$

$$c_{ij}$$ is the (constant) length of edge $$(i,j).$$

\begin{aligned} \min_{\varphi} \quad & \sum_{(i,j) \in E} c_{ij} \varphi_{ij} \\ \mathrm{s.t.} \quad & \sum_{j \in O_i} \varphi_{ij} - \sum_{j \in I_i} \varphi_{ji} = \delta_{si} - \delta_{ti}, && \forall i \in V, \\ & \varphi_{ij} \geq 0, && \forall (i,j) \in E. \end{aligned}

## New formulation

\begin{aligned} \min_{\varphi,x} \quad & \sum_{(i,j) \in E} \ell_{ij}(x_i, x_j) \varphi_{ij} \\ \mathrm{s.t.} \quad & x_i \in X_i, && \forall i \in V, \\ & \sum_{j \in O_i} \varphi_{ij} - \sum_{j \in I_i} \varphi_{ji} = \delta_{si} - \delta_{ti}, && \forall i \in V, \\ & \varphi_{ij} \geq 0, && \forall (i,j) \in E. \end{aligned}

Use convex hull reformulation + perspective functions to rewrite this as mixed-integer convex.

• When sets $$X_i$$ are points, reduces to standard LP formulation of the shortest path (known to be tight).

• There are instances of this problem that are NP-hard.

• Can strengthen convex relaxation by adding additional convex constraints (implied by binary feasibility).

• Can add (piecewise-affine) dynamic constraints on pairs $$(x_i,x_j).$$

## Euclidean shortest path

Finding the shortest path from A to B while avoiding polygonal obstacles (“Euclidean shortest path”):

• Solvable in polytime in 2d (with a visibility graph)
• NP-hard from 3 dimensions on
• For the 3d case there exists an approximation algorithm which gives you eps-optimality in poly time
• Nothing is known for $$d \ge 4$$

Our approach:

• Provides polynomial-time algorithm for $$d \ge 4$$ that is often tight.
• Solves a more general class of problems (e.g. can add dynamic constraints).
• WIP: Certificate of optimal solutions with high probability given a suitable rounding strategy.

Going forward...

## Potential Implications for Manipulation

• Could have implications for even traditional collision-free optimal motion planning?
• Major advantage is supporting (piecewise-affine) dynamic constraints
• Now exploring model-based planning through contact (physics models and perhaps deep models)
• Recent results on Warm-starting mixed-integer MPC (Marcucci and Tedrake, 2020).

from Choset, Howie M., et al.
Principles of robot motion: theory, algorithms, and implementation. MIT press, 2005.

## Summary

• New strong mixed-integer convex formulation for shortest path problems over convex regions
• reduces to shortest path as regions become points
• NP-hard; but strong formulation $$\Rightarrow$$ efficient B&B
• Convex relaxations are often tight!  $$\Rightarrow$$ Rounding strategies
• Should generalize to many graph optimizations / applications

Still need

• better models/state representations
• stronger planning/control design strategies.

By russtedrake

# Motion Planning around Obstacles using Convex Optimization

Talk at UIUC, January 19, 2021

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