Safely executing long-horizon multi-arm tasks online in complex dynamic environments remains challenging. We propose a new distributed dynamic Gaussian belief propagation (DD-GBP) method that directly plans joint-space trajectories through parallel local inference. A unified Gaussian-process (GP) parameterization connects adaptive planning horizons, interpolation-time factors, and continuous execution. Each robot maintains a local tree-structured factor graph and exchanges messages asynchronously over active inter-arm links. Dynamic subnet reconstruction and event-triggered updates reduce communication and inference costs while responding to moving obstacles. We also provide theoretical analyses of local inference accuracy, anytime early stopping, triggered-replanning consistency, and GP-consistent execution.
In 50 long-horizon, multi-target four-arm scenes with moving obstacles, DD-GBP achieves $92.5\%$ collision-free all-target completion and the highest success rate among six representative baselines. Scenario ablations demonstrate long-horizon safety and robustness to communication impairment and extreme conditions; success remains $86.0\%$ under $90\%$ packet loss. Execution results further show substantially suppressed extreme velocity and acceleration peaks relative to Syn-GBP. On one workstation, obstacle-free tests with 30 coexisting arms retain $99.87\%$ success and a $15.80$ ms mean warm solve, exceeding 60 Hz and outperforming the compared methods in scalability. Dual-arm transport experiments under dynamic interference demonstrate online response and practical deployability. To the best of our knowledge, these results establish a new state of the art for online long-horizon multi-arm planning in dynamic scenes.
In this article, we present a visual introduction to Gaussian Belief Propagation (GBP), an approximate probabilistic inference algorithm that operates by passing messages between the nodes of arbitrarily structured factor graphs. A special case of loopy belief propagation, GBP updates rely only on local information and will converge independently of the message schedule. Our key argument is that, given recent trends in computing hardware, GBP has the right computational properties to act as a scalable distributed probabilistic inference framework for future machine learning systems.
We argue the case for Gaussian Belief Propagation (GBP) as a strong algorithmic framework for the distributed, generic and incremental probabilistic estimation we need in Spatial AI as we aim at high performance smart robots and devices which operate within the constraints of real products. Processor hardware is changing rapidly, and GBP has the right character to take advantage of highly distributed processing and storage while estimating global quantities, as well as great flexibility. We present a detailed tutorial on GBP, relating to the standard factor graph formulation used in robotics a…
UC Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Honda Research Institute（本田研究所）
A human-centered robot needs to reason about the cognitive limitation and potential irrationality of its human partner to achieve seamless interactions. This paper proposes an anytime game-theoretic planner that integrates iterative reasoning models, a partially observable Markov decision process, and chance-constrained Monte-Carlo belief tree search for robot behavioral planning. Our planner enables a robot to safely and actively reason about its human partner's latent cognitive states (bounded intelligence and irrationality) in real-time to maximize its utility better. We validate our approa…
Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学）；University of Washington（华盛顿大学）
We propose an algorithmic framework for efficient anytime motion planning on large dense geometric roadmaps, in domains where collision checks and therefore edge evaluations are computationally expensive. A large dense roadmap (graph) can typically ensure the existence of high quality solutions for most motion-planning problems, but the size of the roadmap, particularly in high-dimensional spaces, makes existing search-based planning algorithms computationally expensive. We deal with the challenges of expensive search and collision checking in two ways. First, we frame the problem of anytime m…
Precise coordinated planning over a forward time window enables safe and highly efficient motion when many robots must work together in tight spaces, but this would normally require centralised control of all devices which is difficult to scale. We demonstrate GBP Planning, a new purely distributed technique based on Gaussian Belief Propagation for multi-robot planning problems, formulated by a generic factor graph defining dynamics and collision constraints over a forward time window. In simulations, we show that our method allows high performance collaborative planning where robots are able …
We propose a novel belief space planning technique for continuous dynamics by viewing the belief system as a hybrid dynamical system with time-driven switching. Our approach is based on the perturbation theory of differential equations and extends Sequential Action Control to stochastic dynamics. The resulting algorithm, which we name SACBP, does not require discretization of spaces or time and synthesizes control signals in near real-time. SACBP is an anytime algorithm that can handle general parametric Bayesian filters under certain assumptions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approa…
Breaking Time: A Fully Gaussian Framework for Distributed and Continuous-Time SLAM
Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering "Antonio Ruberti", Sapienza University of Rome（计算机、控制与管理工程系（Antonio Ruberti）, 罗马萨皮恩扎大学）；University of Stuttgart（斯图加特大学）
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA（电气与计算机工程学院，佐治亚理工学院，亚特兰大，GA）；School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA（航空航天工程学院，佐治亚理工学院，亚特兰大，GA）
