MPPI-DBaS: Safe Trajectory Optimization with Adaptive Exploration

TL;DR

This paper introduces MPPI-DBaS, an enhanced trajectory optimization method that integrates discrete barrier states into MPPI to ensure safety and adaptive exploration, significantly improving performance in obstacle navigation tasks.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel MPPI-DBaS algorithm that guarantees safety and enables adaptive exploration, addressing limitations of standard MPPI in constrained environments.

Findings

Higher success rate in obstacle navigation

Lower tracking errors compared to standard MPPI

Effective safety assurance in simulation scenarios

Abstract

In trajectory optimization, Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) control is a sampling-based Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework that generates optimal inputs by efficiently simulating numerous trajectories. In practice, however, MPPI often struggles to guarantee safety assurance and balance efficient sampling in open spaces with the need for more extensive exploration under tight constraints. To address this challenge, we incorporate discrete barrier states (DBaS) into MPPI and propose a novel MPPI-DBaS algorithm that ensures system safety and enables adaptive exploration across diverse scenarios. We evaluate our method in simulation experiments where the vehicle navigates through closely placed obstacles. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms standard MPPI, achieving a higher success rate and lower tracking errors.