Robot candidate selection improved by executor-aware feasibility checks
Executor-aware Candidate Selection via a Feasibility Certificate
Robotics
Summary
Sometimes robots plan movements that look good on paper but can’t actually be done because of strict rules for how they must move. The authors introduce a way to check if a planned move really fits the robot’s control abilities before trying it. Their method uses a kind of ‘certificate’ to quickly filter out moves that won’t work, saving time and avoiding errors. While the method is cautious and sometimes misses feasible moves, it helps pick better commands that match what the robot can actually do.
What this means in practice
- •For robotics system integrators: Select robot commands better matched to executor constraints for safer and more reliable robot operation.
- •For robotics software developers: Incorporate executor-aware feasibility checks into planning pipelines to improve candidate movement validation without changing existing planning or execution modules.
Authors
Sooin Choi, Soonwoong Hwang, Wansoo Kim
Abstract
Modular robotic systems often separate motion planning from a downstream executor that enforces state-dependent hard constraints. A candidate that is geometrically valid may therefore be incompatible with the executor's available command set. We present a certificate-based candidate-selection framework that constructs a command witness from the executor hard set at predicted rollout states and verifies it against the original constraints, without changing candidate generation, ranking, or the executor. Across 5,085 geometry-valid numerical evaluations on two robot models, 795 admitted no executor-feasible command. The certificate is sufficient but conservative: none of the 795 was certified, while 7.09\% of reference-feasible cases remained uncertified. In controlled FR3 and fixed-base RB-Y1 simulations, certificate admission frequently changed candidate selection, and a post-hoc exact linear-programming (LP) admission baseline revealed platform-dependent conservatism. Relative to geometry-based selection, certificate admission was associated with lower planner-command coverage and higher nominal tracking error, without a consistent advantage in reached-state interaction reserve. A planner-generated MoveIt/OMPL study further evaluates the same admission rule on externally generated candidate pools.