RTD-RAX: Fast, Safe Trajectory Planning for Systems under Unknown Disturbances

arXiv cs.RO / 3/24/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper introduces RTD-RAX, an extension to reachability-based trajectory design that improves real-time performance and reduces conservatism compared with standard RTD approaches.

Abstract

Reachability-based Trajectory Design (RTD) is a provably safe, real-time trajectory planning framework that combines offline reachable-set computation with online trajectory optimization. However, standard RTD implementations suffer from two key limitations: conservatism induced by worst-case reachable-set overapproximations, and an inability to account for real-time disturbances during execution. This paper presents RTD-RAX, a runtime-assurance extension of RTD that utilizes a non-conservative RTD formulation to rapidly generate goal-directed candidate trajectories, and utilizes mixed monotone reachability for fast, disturbance-aware online safety certification. When proposed trajectories fail safety certification under real-time uncertainty, a repair procedure finds nearby safe trajectories that preserve progress toward the goal while guaranteeing safety under real-time disturbances.