Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance

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Overview

Dynamic obstacle avoidance studies how robots and autonomous vehicles choose feasible paths and actions when people, vehicles, or other obstacles move. Methods range from space-time search and model-predictive control to velocity-obstacle methods and control barrier functions that constrain reactive controllers. Learning-based approaches use reinforcement or imitation learning, motion prediction, and learned risk or occupancy representations, often combined with classical planners and safety filters. A central challenge is balancing safety and efficient progress under uncertain, delayed perception and predictions; reliable real-world transfer and evaluation in dense, interactive settings remain open concerns.

Latest papers

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119 papers22 papers in the last four weeks, up 47% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Sliding Mode Control for Safe Trajectory Tracking with Moving Obstacles Avoidance: Experimental Validation on Planar Robots

    Apr 27, 2026Shubham Sawarkar, P Sangeerth, S Saharsh +1Robot Trajectory TrackingMobile Robotics

    Centre for Cyber-Physical Systems and Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India. · Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India.

  2. Unleashing the Agility of Wheeled-Legged Robots for High-Dynamic Reflexive Obstacle Evasion

    Apr 26, 2026Yongen Zhao, Zihao Xu, Wenzhi Lu +4Hierarchical RLRobot Locomotion

    Beijing Zhongguancun Academy, Beijing, China · School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China · School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore +1

  3. Full-Body Dynamic Safety for Robot Manipulators: 3D Poisson Safety Functions for CBF-Based Safety Filters

    Apr 23, 2026Meg Wilkinson, Gilbert Bahati, Ryan M. Bena +3Control Barrier FunctionsRobot Safety

    Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology. · Mechanical and Civil Engineering, California Institute of Technology.

  4. Stochastic Barrier Certificates in the Presence of Dynamic Obstacles

    Apr 22, 2026Rayan Mazouz, Luca Laurenti, Morteza LahijanianControl Barrier FunctionsDynamic Obstacle Avoidance

    Dept. of Aerospace Eng. Sciences at University of Colorado Boulder, USA · Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

  5. Momentum-constrained Hybrid Heuristic Trajectory Optimization Framework with Residual-enhanced DRL for Visually Impaired Scenarios

    Apr 16, 2026Yuting Zeng, Zhiwen Zheng, Jingya Wang +6Trajectory OptimizationAssistive Robotics

    School of Information and Software Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, Sichuan, P.R. China · Sichuan Provincial Key Laboratory for Human Disease Gene Study, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences & Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. · Research Unit for Blindness Prevention, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.

  6. COSMIK-MPPI: Scaling Constrained Model Predictive Control to Collision Avoidance in Close-Proximity Dynamic Human Environments

    Apr 11, 2026Ege Gursoy, Maxime Sabbah, Arthur Haffemayer +5Robot Collision AvoidanceModel Predictive Control

    LAAS-CNRS, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Toulouse, France · CIIRC, Czech Technical University, Prague · LIRMM, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France +3

  7. SANDO: Safe Autonomous Trajectory Planning for Dynamic Unknown Environments

    Apr 8, 2026Kota Kondo, Jesús Tordesillas, Juan Rached +3Safe Motion PlanningConstrained Motion Planning

    the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA · IIT, ICAI, Comillas Pontifical University, Madrid, Spain · the Trustworthy Robotics and AI Lab (TRAIL)

  8. Serialized Red-Green-Gray: Quicker Heuristic Validation of Edges in Dynamic Roadmap Graphs

    Mar 30, 2026Yulie Arad, Stav Ashur, Marta Markowicz +3Roadmap-Based Motion PlanningMotion Planning

    Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, University of Illinois, 201 N. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA · Department of Computer Science, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Mexico City, 01080, México

  9. An End-to-end Flight Control Network for High-speed UAV Obstacle Avoidance based on Event-Depth Fusion

    Mar 28, 2026Dikai Shang, Jingyue Zhao, Shi Xu +2UAV NavigationDynamic Obstacle Avoidance

    Shanghai jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China · Defense Innovation Institute, AMS, Beijing 10071, China

  10. Robust Distributed Cooperative Path-Following and Local Replanning for Multi-UAVs Under Differentiated Low-Altitude Paths

    Mar 25, 2026Zimao Sheng, Zirui Yu, Hong'an YangDistributed ControlUAV Navigation

    School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China · Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, China

  11. Dynamic Control Barrier Function Regulation with Vision-Language Models for Safe, Adaptive, and Realtime Visual Navigation

    Mar 22, 2026Jeffrey Chen, Rohan ChandraSafe Robot NavigationControl Barrier Functions

    Authors are with the Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia.

  12. Robust Spatiotemporal Motion Planning for Multi-Agent Autonomous Racing via Topological Gap Identification and Accelerated MPC

    Mar 10, 2026Mingyi Zhang, Cheng Hu, Yiqin Wang +3Autonomous RacingMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Department of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University. · Center for Project-Based Learning, D-ITET, ETH Zurich.

  13. CN-CBF: Composite Neural Control Barrier Function for Robot Navigation in Dynamic Environments

    Mar 6, 2026Bojan Derajić, Sebastian Bernhard, Wolfgang HönigControl Barrier FunctionsSafe Robot Navigation

    Technical University of Berlin, Germany · AUMOVIO, Germany · Robotics Institute Germany (RIG), Germany

  14. GIANT - Global Path Integration and Attentive Graph Networks for Multi-Agent Trajectory Planning

    Mar 4, 2026Jonas le Fevre Sejersen, Toyotaro Suzumura, Erdal KayacanMulti-Robot Motion PlanningRobot Collision Avoidance

    Artificial Intelligence in Robotics Laboratory (AiR Lab), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark · Foundation Models for Artificial Intelligence group, Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan · Automatic Control Group, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany

  15. COLREGs Compliant Collision Avoidance and Grounding Prevention for Autonomous Marine Navigation

    Mar 3, 2026Mayur S. Patil, Nataraj Sudharsan, Veneela Ammula +5Collision AvoidanceConstrained Motion Planning

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA · American Bureau of Shipping, Spring, TX, USA

  16. CHOP: Counterfactual Human Preference Labels Improve Obstacle Avoidance in Visuomotor Navigation Policies

    Mar 2, 2026Gershom Seneviratne, Jianyu An, Vaibhav Shende +6Safe Robot NavigationVisuomotor Policy Learning

    University of Maryland, College Park

  17. Online Generation of Collision-Free Trajectories in Dynamic Environments

    Feb 28, 2026Nermin Covic, Bakir LacevicConstrained Motion PlanningTrajectory Optimization

    Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

  18. Layered Safety: Enhancing Autonomous Collision Avoidance via Multistage CBF Safety Filters

    Feb 27, 2026Erina Yamaguchi, Ryan M. Bena, Gilbert Bahati +1Safety-Critical ControlControl Barrier Functions

    Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering and the Department of Aerospace, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA

  19. Curriculum Reinforcement Learning for Quadrotor Racing with Random Obstacles

    Feb 27, 2026Fangyu Sun, Fanxing Li, Yu Hu +4Autonomous Drone RacingAutonomous Racing

    School of Automation and Perception, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China · Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

  20. RA-Nav: A Risk-Aware Navigation System Based on Semantic Segmentation for Aerial Robots in Unpredictable Environments

    Feb 19, 2026Ziyi Zong, Xin Dong, Jinwu Xiang +2Safe Robot NavigationSafe Motion Planning

  21. Reactive Motion Generation With Particle-Based Perception in Dynamic Environments

    Feb 18, 2026Xiyuan Zhao, Huijun Li, Lifeng Zhu +3Robot Motion GenerationDynamic Obstacle Avoidance

    The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Lab of Robot Sensing and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.

  22. ReaDy-Go: Real-to-Sim Dynamic 3D Gaussian Splatting Simulation for Environment-Specific Visual Navigation with Moving Obstacles

    Feb 12, 2026Seungyeon Yoo, Youngseok Jang, Dabin Kim +3Robotics SimulationRobot Navigation

    Department of Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea · InnoCORE AI-Transformed Aerospace Research Center, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

  23. SPOT: Spatio-Temporal Obstacle-free Trajectory Planning for UAVs in Unknown Dynamic Environments

    Feb 1, 2026Astik Srivastava, Thomas J Chackenkulam, Bitla Bhanu Teja +2UAV NavigationSafe Motion Planning

    Robotics Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad, India · IIT-BHU, India

  24. A Convex Obstacle Avoidance Formulation

    Dec 15, 2025Ricardo Tapia, Iman SoltaniCollision AvoidanceNonlinear MPC

    Laboratory for AI, Robotics and Automation, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616 USA

  25. IndustryNav: Evaluating Spatial Reasoning and Safety of Embodied Agents in Dynamic Industrial Navigation

    Nov 21, 2025Yifan Li, Lichi Li, Anh Dao +15Visual Spatial ReasoningEmbodied Navigation

    Michigan State University · Independent Researcher · University of California, Irvine +7

  26. Least Restrictive Hyperplane Control Barrier Functions

    Oct 21, 2025Mattias Trende, Petter ÖgrenSafety-Critical ControlControl Barrier Functions

    The authors are with the Robotics, Perception and Learning Lab., School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

  27. Learning from Hallucinating Critical Points for Navigation in Dynamic Environments

    Sep 30, 2025Saad Abdul Ghani, Kameron Lee, Xuesu XiaoTrajectory GenerationSynthetic Data Generation for Robotics

    George Mason University · Thomas Jefferson High school intern affiliated with the RobotiXX Lab, George Mason University

  28. Real-time autonomous magnetic microrobot navigation across dynamic and biologically relevant environments

    Sep 5, 2025Yanda Yang, Max Sokolich, Fatma Ceren Kirmizitas +3Robot NavigationRobotics

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark 19716, USA. · Department of Animal and Food Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark 19716, USA. · School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.

  29. No Undesirable Equilibria, No Collisions: Combining Modulation and Control Barrier Functions for Liveness and Safety in Dynamic Collision Avoidance

    Feb 20, 2025Yifan Xue, Nadia FigueroaControl Barrier FunctionsSafety-Critical Control

    the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA