Multi-Robot Trajectory Planning via Constrained Bayesian Optimization and Local Cost Map Learning with STL-Based Conflict Resolution
Authors: Sourav Raxit, Abdullah Al Redwan Newaz, Jose Fuentes, Paulo Padrao, Ana Cavalcanti, Leonardo Bobadilla
Organizations: Department of Computer Science, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA · Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA · Providence College, Department of Mathematics & Computer Science, Providence, RI 02918, USA
We address multi-robot motion planning under Signal Temporal Logic (STL) specifications with kinodynamic constraints. Exact approaches face scalability bottlenecks and limited adaptability, while conventional sampling-based methods require excessive samples to construct optimal trajectories. We propose a two-stage framework integrating sampling-based online learning with formal STL reasoning. At the single-robot level, our constrained Bayesian Optimization-based Tree search (cBOT) planner uses a Gaussian process as a surrogate model to learn local cost maps and feasibility constraints, generating shorter collision-free trajectories with fewer samples. At the multi-robot level, our STL-enhanced Kinodynamic Conflict-Based Search (STL-KCBS) algorithm incorporates STL monitoring into conflict detection and resolution, ensuring specification satisfaction while maintaining scalability and probabilistic completeness. Benchmarking demonstrates improved trajectory efficiency and safety over existing methods. Real-world experiments with autonomous surface vehicles validate robustness and practical applicability in uncertain environments. The STLcBOT Planner will be released as an open-source package, and videos of real-world and simulated experiments are available at https://stlbot.github.io/.
Figures & tables
Method
Multirobot
STL Spec
Learning
Kinodynamic Constraints
MILP [ 9 ]
✓
✓
×
×
STL-RRT* [ 20 , 6 ]
×
✓
×
×
ST-GCS [ 26 ]
✓
✓
×
×
MPC [ 4 ]
×
✓
✓
×
GCBF [ 10 ]
✓
✓
✓
×
K-CBS [ 27 ]
✓
×
×
✓
TABLE I : Qualitative comparison of the related methods.
Fig. 1 : STLcBOT planner applied to three UGVs navigating a cluttered indoor environment. Subfigures 1a and 1b demonstrate kinodynamically-constrained trajectories that enable accurate trajectory following and collision avoidance.
Fig. 2 : Comparison of RRT and cBOT planners for twelve robots under STL constraints in forest and cross-hall environments. Figures 2a and 2c show RRT-generated trajectories, while Figures 2b and 2d display cBOT-generated paths. cBOT produces notably shorter and smoother trajectories compared to the longer, less structured paths from RRT-based planning.
Fig. 3 : Field validation of STLcBOT using two ASVs in a lake environment with complex navigation scenarios. Figs. – show planned trajectories, while Figs. – display ASVs executing missions in the operational area.
Fig. 4 : STLcBOT planner applied to three ASVs navigating in a lake environment with challenging spatial configurations. Subfigures ( 4a ) and ( 4b ) show trajectory execution where ASVs reach their respective goals while avoiding fountain obstacles.
Fig. 5 : Benchmark comparison of multi-robot motion planning algorithms across four representative environments (Env. 1: empty, Env. 2: cross-hall, Env. 3: forest, Env. 4: bugtrap). The columns report success rates, runtimes, and path lengths as the number of robots increases. The proposed STLcBOT, together with other cBOT-based methods (KcBOT, PPcBOT) [ 27 , 16 ] , consistently achieves near-perfect success and efficient paths with tractable runtimes. RRT-based methods (PPRRT, STLRRT, KRRT) [ 29 , 27 , 16 , 1 ] degrade under clutter and density, while convex optimization–based approaches (PBS+STGCS, SP+STGCS, RP+STGCS) [ 26 ] and temporal sampling extension (SP+STRRT*) [ 26 ] generate competitive paths when successful but fail to scale, particularly in Env. 3.
Sampling-based motion planning has emerged as a powerful approach for robotics, enabling exploration of complex, high-dimensional configuration spaces. When combined with Signal Temporal Logic (STL), a temporal logic widely used for formalizing interpretable robotic tasks, these methods can address complex spatiotemporal constraints. However, traditional approaches rely on min-max robustness measures that focus only on critical time points and subformulae, creating non-smooth optimization landscapes with sharp decision boundaries that hinder efficient tree exploration. We propose RRTη, a sampling-based planning framework that integrates the Arithmetic-Geometric Mean (AGM) robustness measure to evaluate satisfaction across all time points and subformulae. Our key contributions include: (1) AGM robustness interval semantics for reasoning about partial trajectories during tree construction, (2) an efficient incremental monitoring algorithm computing these intervals, and (3) enhanced Direction of Increasing Satisfaction vectors leveraging Fulfillment Priority Logic (FPL) for principled objective composition. Our framework synthesizes dynamically feasible control sequences satisfying STL specifications with high robustness while maintaining the probabilistic completeness and asymptotic optimality of RRT∗. We validate our approach on three robotic systems. A double integrator point robot, a unicycle mobile robot, and a 7-DOF robot arm, demonstrating superior performance over traditional STL robustness-based planners in multi-constraint scenarios with limited guidance signals.
Ahmad Ahmad, Shuo Liu, Roberto Tron +1
Division of Systems Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
This paper investigates continuous-time motion planning under Signal Temporal Logic (STL) specifications. The goal is to generate smooth robot trajectories that satisfy high-level logical and timing requirements while respecting low-level motion constraints. To this end, we propose an efficient framework that combines timed-automata reasoning with graphs of convex sets (GCS). An STL specification is first represented by a timed automaton, which is then coupled with a convex decomposition of the configuration space to form a joint transition system encoding both task progress and region occupancy. Based on this joint transition system, the STL motion-planning problem is reformulated as a shortest-path problem over a GCS, whose solution induces a smooth Bézier-spline trajectory satisfying the STL specification, smoothness requirements, and velocity bounds. We establish the soundness of the proposed formulation and analyze its computational complexity, showing that, once the timed automaton and convex decomposition are fixed, the convex relaxation scales polynomially with the configuration-space dimension and the Bézier degree. We further develop a compact timed-automaton construction for an expressive STL fragment using dedicated templates and Boolean composition. Numerical experiments on low-dimensional benchmarks, a 3-D quadrotor, a 30-DoF humanoid, and a hardware experiment on a UR-3 robot arm demonstrate that the proposed method efficiently solves complex STL motion-planning problems and produces smooth executable trajectories.
Yu Chen, Ancheng Hou, Mingyang Feng +2
School of Automation & Intelligent Sensing, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China · Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Multi-agent planning under Signal Temporal Logic (STL) is often hindered by collaborative tasks that lead to computational challenges due to the inherent high dimensionality of the problem, preventing scalable synthesis with satisfaction guarantees. To address this, we formulate STL planning as an optimization program under multi-agent STL constraints and introduce a penalty-based unconstrained relaxation that can be efficiently solved via a Block-Coordinate Gradient Descent (BCGD) method, where each block corresponds to a single agent's decision variables, thereby mitigating complexity. By utilizing a quadratic penalty function defined via smooth STL semantics, we show that BCGD iterations converge to a stationary point of the penalized problem under standard regularity assumptions. To enforce feasibility, the BCGD solver is embedded within a two-layer optimization scheme: inner BCGD updates are performed for a fixed penalty parameter, which is then increased in an outer loop to progressively improve multi-agent STL robustness. The proposed framework enables scalable computations and is validated through various complex multi-robot planning scenarios.
Eleftherios E. Vlahakis, Arash Bahari Kordabad, Lars Lindemann +3
the Division of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, University West, 46132, Trollhättan, Sweden · the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Kaiserslautern, Germany · the Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zürich, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland +2