VRA: Grounding Discrete-Time Joint Acceleration in Voltage-Constrained Actuation

Lingwei Zhang1, Jiaming Wang1, Tianlin Zhang1, Zhitao Song1, Xuanqi Zeng1, Weipeng Xia1, Zhongyu Li1, Yun-hui Liu1,*,
1 The Chinese University of HongKong RSS 2026
arXiv Supplementary Code
Paper cover

Abstract

Discrete-time joint acceleration constraints are widely used to enforce position and velocity limits. However, under voltage-constrained electric actuators, kinematically admissible accelerations may be physically unrealizable, exposing a missing execution-level abstraction. We propose Voltage-Realizable Acceleration (VRA), a joint-level acceleration interface that grounds kinematic acceleration in voltage-constrained actuator physics by restricting commanded accelerations to voltage-realizable constraints. Hardware experiments on electric actuators and a wheel-legged quadruped show that VRA removes unrealizable accelerations, restores consistent near-constraint execution, and reduces constraint-induced oscillations.

Video Presentations

Hardware Experiments on Actuators and Wheel-leg Quadruped Robot

Customized Actuators and Robots

BibTeX

@inproceedings{zhang2026vra,
  title={VRA: Grounding Discrete-Time Joint Acceleration in Voltage-Constrained Actuation},
  author={Lingwei Zhang, Jiaming Wang, Tianlin Zhang, Zhitao Song, Xuanqi Zeng, Weipeng Xia, Zhongyu Li, Yun-hui Liu},
  booktitle={Robotics: Science and Systems},
  year={2026}
}