Egocentric Conformal Prediction for Safe and Efficient Navigation in Dynamic Cluttered Environments

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Shin, Jaeuk, Lee, Jungjin, Yang, Insoon
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Shin, Jaeuk
Lee, Jungjin
Yang, Insoon
author_facet Shin, Jaeuk
Lee, Jungjin
Yang, Insoon
contents Conformal prediction (CP) has emerged as a powerful tool in robotics and control, thanks to its ability to calibrate complex, data-driven models with formal guarantees. However, in robot navigation tasks, existing CP-based methods often decouple prediction from control, evaluating models without considering whether prediction errors actually compromise safety. Consequently, ego-vehicles may become overly conservative or even immobilized when all potential trajectories appear infeasible. To address this issue, we propose a novel CP-based navigation framework that responds exclusively to safety-critical prediction errors. Our approach introduces egocentric score functions that quantify how much closer obstacles are to a candidate vehicle position than anticipated. These score functions are then integrated into a model predictive control scheme, wherein each candidate state is individually evaluated for safety. Combined with an adaptive CP mechanism, our framework dynamically adjusts to changes in obstacle motion without resorting to unnecessary conservatism. Theoretical analyses indicate that our method outperforms existing CP-based approaches in terms of cost-efficiency while maintaining the desired safety levels, as further validated through experiments on real-world datasets featuring densely populated pedestrian environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_00447
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Egocentric Conformal Prediction for Safe and Efficient Navigation in Dynamic Cluttered Environments
Shin, Jaeuk
Lee, Jungjin
Yang, Insoon
Robotics
Systems and Control
Conformal prediction (CP) has emerged as a powerful tool in robotics and control, thanks to its ability to calibrate complex, data-driven models with formal guarantees. However, in robot navigation tasks, existing CP-based methods often decouple prediction from control, evaluating models without considering whether prediction errors actually compromise safety. Consequently, ego-vehicles may become overly conservative or even immobilized when all potential trajectories appear infeasible. To address this issue, we propose a novel CP-based navigation framework that responds exclusively to safety-critical prediction errors. Our approach introduces egocentric score functions that quantify how much closer obstacles are to a candidate vehicle position than anticipated. These score functions are then integrated into a model predictive control scheme, wherein each candidate state is individually evaluated for safety. Combined with an adaptive CP mechanism, our framework dynamically adjusts to changes in obstacle motion without resorting to unnecessary conservatism. Theoretical analyses indicate that our method outperforms existing CP-based approaches in terms of cost-efficiency while maintaining the desired safety levels, as further validated through experiments on real-world datasets featuring densely populated pedestrian environments.
title Egocentric Conformal Prediction for Safe and Efficient Navigation in Dynamic Cluttered Environments
topic Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.00447