Keep It Cool: Optimal Control of Robotic Systems Under Temperature Constraints

@article{debenedittis2026keep,
 author={De Benedittis, Davide and Angelini, Franco and Incerpi, Riccardo and Pallottino, Lucia and Garabini, Manolo},
 journal={IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology}, 
 title={Keep It Cool: Optimal Control of Robotic Systems Under Temperature Constraints}, 
 year={2026},
 volume={},
 number={},
 pages={1-13},
 doi={10.1109/TCST.2026.3721130}}

Overheating of electronic components, and especially motor drivers, is a key limitation in robotic systems. This study presents a control approach based on hierarchical quadratic programming and model predictive control (MPC) to prevent drivers from overheating in robotic systems. This is made possible by incorporating the temperature dynamics into the overall system dynamics. Prioritized inequality constraints limit the maximum temperature of the drivers in the control framework, avoiding overheating problems. Exhaustive simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in preventing overheating while performing tasks, and an ablation study quantifies the contribution of each of the method’s main components. Experiments on a redundant planar manipulator further validate the proposed approach. The results show that, while exploiting its redundancy, the manipulator adjusts its configuration over time to respect the temperature and other critical constraints and optimally perform the commanded tasks.