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Main Authors: Hughes, Christian, Abraham, Ian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01023
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author Hughes, Christian
Abraham, Ian
author_facet Hughes, Christian
Abraham, Ian
contents This paper derives an infinite-horizon ergodic controller based on kernel mean embeddings for long-duration coverage tasks on general domains. While existing kernel-based ergodic control methods provide strong coverage guarantees on general coverage domains, their practical use has been limited to sub-ergodic, finite-time horizons due to intractable computational scaling, prohibiting its use for long-duration coverage. We resolve this scaling by deriving an infinite-horizon ergodic controller equipped with an extended kernel mean embedding error visitation state that recursively records state visitation. This extended state decouples past visitation from future control synthesis and expands ergodic control to infinite-time settings. In addition, we present a variation of the controller that operates on a receding-horizon control formulation with the extended error state. We demonstrate theoretical proof of asymptotic convergence of the derived controller and show preservation of ergodic coverage guarantees for a class of 2D and 3D coverage problems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_01023
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Infinite-Horizon Ergodic Control via Kernel Mean Embeddings
Hughes, Christian
Abraham, Ian
Robotics
This paper derives an infinite-horizon ergodic controller based on kernel mean embeddings for long-duration coverage tasks on general domains. While existing kernel-based ergodic control methods provide strong coverage guarantees on general coverage domains, their practical use has been limited to sub-ergodic, finite-time horizons due to intractable computational scaling, prohibiting its use for long-duration coverage. We resolve this scaling by deriving an infinite-horizon ergodic controller equipped with an extended kernel mean embedding error visitation state that recursively records state visitation. This extended state decouples past visitation from future control synthesis and expands ergodic control to infinite-time settings. In addition, we present a variation of the controller that operates on a receding-horizon control formulation with the extended error state. We demonstrate theoretical proof of asymptotic convergence of the derived controller and show preservation of ergodic coverage guarantees for a class of 2D and 3D coverage problems.
title Infinite-Horizon Ergodic Control via Kernel Mean Embeddings
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01023