Safety-Critical Centralized Nonlinear MPC for Cooperative Payload Transportation by Two Quadrupedal Robots

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Sambhus, Ruturaj S., Zeng, Yicheng, Mehta, Kapi Ketan, Kim, Jeeseop, Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Sambhus, Ruturaj S.
Zeng, Yicheng
Mehta, Kapi Ketan
Kim, Jeeseop
Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
author_facet Sambhus, Ruturaj S.
Zeng, Yicheng
Mehta, Kapi Ketan
Kim, Jeeseop
Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
contents This paper presents a safety-critical centralized nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) framework for cooperative payload transportation by two quadrupedal robots. The interconnected robot-payload system is modeled as a discrete-time nonlinear differential-algebraic system, capturing the coupled dynamics through holonomic constraints and interaction wrenches. To ensure safety in complex environments, we develop a control barrier function (CBF)-based NMPC formulation that enforces collision avoidance constraints for both the robots and the payload. The proposed approach retains the interaction wrenches as decision variables, resulting in a structured DAE-constrained optimal control problem that enables efficient real-time implementation. The effectiveness of the algorithm is validated through extensive hardware experiments on two Unitree Go2 platforms performing cooperative payload transportation in cluttered environments under mass and inertia uncertainty and external push disturbances.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_03200
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Safety-Critical Centralized Nonlinear MPC for Cooperative Payload Transportation by Two Quadrupedal Robots
Sambhus, Ruturaj S.
Zeng, Yicheng
Mehta, Kapi Ketan
Kim, Jeeseop
Hamed, Kaveh Akbari
Robotics
Optimization and Control
This paper presents a safety-critical centralized nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) framework for cooperative payload transportation by two quadrupedal robots. The interconnected robot-payload system is modeled as a discrete-time nonlinear differential-algebraic system, capturing the coupled dynamics through holonomic constraints and interaction wrenches. To ensure safety in complex environments, we develop a control barrier function (CBF)-based NMPC formulation that enforces collision avoidance constraints for both the robots and the payload. The proposed approach retains the interaction wrenches as decision variables, resulting in a structured DAE-constrained optimal control problem that enables efficient real-time implementation. The effectiveness of the algorithm is validated through extensive hardware experiments on two Unitree Go2 platforms performing cooperative payload transportation in cluttered environments under mass and inertia uncertainty and external push disturbances.
title Safety-Critical Centralized Nonlinear MPC for Cooperative Payload Transportation by Two Quadrupedal Robots
topic Robotics
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.03200