Stochastic Motion Planning as Gaussian Variational Inference: Theory and Algorithms

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Autori principali: Yu, Hongzhe, Chen, Yongxin
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Yu, Hongzhe
Chen, Yongxin
author_facet Yu, Hongzhe
Chen, Yongxin
contents We present a novel formulation for motion planning under uncertainties based on variational inference where the optimal motion plan is modeled as a posterior distribution. We propose a Gaussian variational inference-based framework, termed Gaussian Variational Inference Motion Planning (GVI-MP), to approximate this posterior by a Gaussian distribution over the trajectories. We show that the GVI-MP framework is dual to a special class of stochastic control problems and brings robustness into the decision-making in motion planning. We develop two algorithms to numerically solve this variational inference and the equivalent control formulations for motion planning. The first algorithm uses a natural gradient paradigm to iteratively update a Gaussian proposal distribution on the sparse motion planning factor graph. We propose a second algorithm, the Proximal Covariance Steering Motion Planner (PCS-MP), to solve the same inference problem in its stochastic control form with an additional terminal constraint. We leverage a proximal gradient paradigm where, at each iteration, we quadratically approximate nonlinear state costs and solve a linear covariance steering problem in closed form. The efficacy of the proposed algorithms is demonstrated through extensive experiments on various robot models. An implementation is provided in https://github.com/hzyu17/VIMP.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_14985
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Stochastic Motion Planning as Gaussian Variational Inference: Theory and Algorithms
Yu, Hongzhe
Chen, Yongxin
Robotics
We present a novel formulation for motion planning under uncertainties based on variational inference where the optimal motion plan is modeled as a posterior distribution. We propose a Gaussian variational inference-based framework, termed Gaussian Variational Inference Motion Planning (GVI-MP), to approximate this posterior by a Gaussian distribution over the trajectories. We show that the GVI-MP framework is dual to a special class of stochastic control problems and brings robustness into the decision-making in motion planning. We develop two algorithms to numerically solve this variational inference and the equivalent control formulations for motion planning. The first algorithm uses a natural gradient paradigm to iteratively update a Gaussian proposal distribution on the sparse motion planning factor graph. We propose a second algorithm, the Proximal Covariance Steering Motion Planner (PCS-MP), to solve the same inference problem in its stochastic control form with an additional terminal constraint. We leverage a proximal gradient paradigm where, at each iteration, we quadratically approximate nonlinear state costs and solve a linear covariance steering problem in closed form. The efficacy of the proposed algorithms is demonstrated through extensive experiments on various robot models. An implementation is provided in https://github.com/hzyu17/VIMP.
title Stochastic Motion Planning as Gaussian Variational Inference: Theory and Algorithms
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.14985