ADMM-Based Distributed MPC with Control Barrier Functions for Safe Multi-Robot Quadrupedal Locomotion

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Zeng, Yicheng, Sambhus, Ruturaj S., Imran, Basit Muhammad, Kim, Jeeseop, Pastore, Vittorio, Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Zeng, Yicheng
Sambhus, Ruturaj S.
Imran, Basit Muhammad
Kim, Jeeseop
Pastore, Vittorio
Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
author_facet Zeng, Yicheng
Sambhus, Ruturaj S.
Imran, Basit Muhammad
Kim, Jeeseop
Pastore, Vittorio
Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
contents This paper proposes a fully decentralized model predictive control (MPC) framework with control barrier function (CBF) constraints for safety-critical trajectory planning in multi-robot legged systems. The incorporation of CBF constraints introduces explicit inter-agent coupling, which prevents direct decomposition of the resulting optimal control problems. To address this challenge, we reformulate the centralized safety-critical MPC problem using a structured distributed optimization framework based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). By introducing a novel node-edge splitting formulation with consensus constraints, the proposed approach decomposes the global problem into independent node-local and edge-local quadratic programs that can be solved in parallel using only neighbor-to-neighbor communication. This enables fully decentralized trajectory optimization with symmetric computational load across agents while preserving safety and dynamic feasibility. The proposed framework is integrated into a hierarchical locomotion control architecture for quadrupedal robots, combining high-level distributed trajectory planning, mid-level nonlinear MPC enforcing single rigid body dynamics, and low-level whole-body control enforcing full-order robot dynamics. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through hardware experiments on two Unitree Go2 quadrupedal robots and numerical simulations involving up to four robots navigating uncertain environments with rough terrain and external disturbances. The results show that the proposed distributed formulation achieves performance comparable to centralized MPC while reducing the average per-cycle planning time by up to 51% in the four-agent case, enabling efficient real-time decentralized implementation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_19170
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ADMM-Based Distributed MPC with Control Barrier Functions for Safe Multi-Robot Quadrupedal Locomotion
Zeng, Yicheng
Sambhus, Ruturaj S.
Imran, Basit Muhammad
Kim, Jeeseop
Pastore, Vittorio
Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
Robotics
Optimization and Control
This paper proposes a fully decentralized model predictive control (MPC) framework with control barrier function (CBF) constraints for safety-critical trajectory planning in multi-robot legged systems. The incorporation of CBF constraints introduces explicit inter-agent coupling, which prevents direct decomposition of the resulting optimal control problems. To address this challenge, we reformulate the centralized safety-critical MPC problem using a structured distributed optimization framework based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). By introducing a novel node-edge splitting formulation with consensus constraints, the proposed approach decomposes the global problem into independent node-local and edge-local quadratic programs that can be solved in parallel using only neighbor-to-neighbor communication. This enables fully decentralized trajectory optimization with symmetric computational load across agents while preserving safety and dynamic feasibility. The proposed framework is integrated into a hierarchical locomotion control architecture for quadrupedal robots, combining high-level distributed trajectory planning, mid-level nonlinear MPC enforcing single rigid body dynamics, and low-level whole-body control enforcing full-order robot dynamics. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through hardware experiments on two Unitree Go2 quadrupedal robots and numerical simulations involving up to four robots navigating uncertain environments with rough terrain and external disturbances. The results show that the proposed distributed formulation achieves performance comparable to centralized MPC while reducing the average per-cycle planning time by up to 51% in the four-agent case, enabling efficient real-time decentralized implementation.
title ADMM-Based Distributed MPC with Control Barrier Functions for Safe Multi-Robot Quadrupedal Locomotion
topic Robotics
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.19170