Kilohertz-Safe: A Scalable Framework for Constrained Dexterous Retargeting

TL;DR

Kilohertz-Safe introduces a scalable, convex optimization-based framework for real-time dexterous hand retargeting that guarantees safety and high-frequency performance, validated on hardware with superior results.

Contribution

It reformulates nonlinear retargeting as a convex quadratic program with safety guarantees, enabling kilohertz-level control with heterogeneous constraints.

Findings

Achieves an average latency of 9.05 ms for retargeting.

Over 95% of frames meet safety criteria.

Outperforms state-of-the-art methods in simulations and hardware.

Abstract

Dexterous hand teleoperation requires motion re-targeting methods that simultaneously achieve high-frequency real-time performance and enforcement of heterogeneous kinematic and safety constraints. Existing nonlinear optimization-based approaches often incur prohibitive computational cost, limiting their applicability to kilohertz-level control, while learning-based methods typically lack formal safety guarantees. This paper proposes a scalable motion retargeting framework that reformulates the nonlinear retargeting problem into a convex quadratic program in joint differential space. Heterogeneous constraints, including kinematic limits and collision avoidance, are incorporated through systematic linearization, resulting in improved computational efficiency and numerical stability. Control barrier functions are further integrated to provide formal safety guarantees during the retargeting process. The proposed framework is validated through simulations and hardware experiments on the Wuji Hand platform, outperforming state-of-the-art methods such as Dex-Retargeting and GeoRT. The framework achieves high-frequency operation with an average latency of 9.05 ms, while over 95% of retargeted frames satisfy the safety criteria, effectively mitigating self-collision and penetration during complex manipulation tasks.