Addressing Behavior Model Inaccuracies for Safe Motion Control in Uncertain Dynamic Environments

Uncertainties in the environment and inaccuracies in behavior models critically affect the safety and reliability of autonomous systems in dynamic environment. These inaccuracies compromise the estimation of a dynamic obstacle’s state, leading to biased estimates and shifts in the predicted trajectory distributions. Such prediction errors, if unaddressed, may result in violations of safety constraints and degraded control performance. To address these challenges, we propose a novel framework called SIED-MPC (Simultaneous Input-Estimation and Distributionally robust Model Predictive Control), which unifies Simultaneous State and Input Estimation (SSIE) with Distributionally Robust Model Predictive Control (DR-MPC) through an adaptive model confidence evaluation scheme. Unlike conventional estimation techniques that assume access to accurate behavior models or treat prediction as an isolated module, our SSIE formulation jointly estimates both the obstacle’s state and the input gap—the discrepancy between predicted and actual control inputs—thus correcting for behavior model errors in real-time. This input gap serves as a quantitative proxy for model confidence, which is used to dynamically adjust the size of the ambiguity set in the DR-MPC formulation via a Wasserstein-based uncertainty radius. By integrating this feedback-driven adaptivity into the control pipeline, SIED-MPC systematically accounts for both estimation bias and distributional shift, ensuring safe operation with minimal conservatism. The proposed framework is evaluated in realistic autonomous driving simulations using CARLA. Our method demonstrates superior collision avoidance performance, lower constraint violation rates, and improved computational efficiency.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Sung, Minjun

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hovakimyan, Naira

• Motion Control
• Robust/Adaptive Control
• Planning under Uncertainty
• Collision Avoidance

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Minjun Sung

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129560

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129560