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TIRAS Transactions on Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems An open access journal of Kaggleyes Academy
TIRAS > Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2026) > KAGG:2609.00004
Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2026) — Article KAGG:2609.00004

High-Speed Obstacle Negotiation for Agile Quadrupeds with Range-Predictive Control

Authors: Carlos Ramirez, Felix Wagner, Ethan Brooks, Ananya Iyer

Legged Robotics Lab, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

[Received 2026-08-25; accepted 2026-09-05; published online 2026-09-08]

Abstract:

At running speeds of 4 to 6 m/s, the reaction budget of a quadruped robot is dominated by the lag of its velocity controller rather than by perception, so a controller that reacts to obstacles already present in its range measurements acts too late. This paper presents a range-predictive negotiation controller built on FutureRay, a perception module that predicts future free range along control-aligned directions. The controller uses the predicted range field to pre-shape the forward and yaw velocity commands before a geometric conflict materializes, schedules the pre-shaping lead time from an identified lag model, and applies an explicit hysteretic rule that hands control to a braking policy when the predicted range collapses below the braking envelope. The design space was explored in Isaac Lab with five seeds, and the controller was evaluated on a Unitree Go2 in a controlled course with six obstacle classes, approach speeds from 4 to 6 m/s in 0.5 m/s steps, and 20 trials per class and speed. Compared with a present-range reactive baseline, the controller raises the mean maximum safe speed over obstacle classes from 4.72 to 4.90 m/s, lowers the miss rate from 4.2 to 3.8 percent, and raises braking handoff success from 90.2 to 97.2 percent. Ablations indicate that the handoff rule, the predicted range, and lead-time scheduling each contribute. Failure analysis shows that at 6.0 m/s the occluded gap class is limited by the unobserved range behind the occluder rather than by the controller.

Journal: Transactions on Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems (TIRAS)
Volume / Issue: Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2026)
Article ID: KAGG:2609.00004
DOI: 10.5803/kagg.2609.00004
Received: 2026-08-25
Accepted: 2026-09-05
Published online: 2026-09-08
License: CC BY 4.0

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Cite this article Carlos Ramirez, Felix Wagner, Ethan Brooks, Ananya Iyer, "High-Speed Obstacle Negotiation for Agile Quadrupeds with Range-Predictive Control," Transactions on Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2026, vol. 1, no. 3, KAGG:2609.00004. DOI: 10.5803/kagg.2609.00004.