English

Certifying Hamilton-Jacobi Reachability Learned via Reinforcement Learning

Systems and Control 2026-02-19 v1 Systems and Control

Abstract

We present a framework to \emph{certify} Hamilton--Jacobi (HJ) reachability learned by reinforcement learning (RL). Building on a discounted initial time \emph{travel-cost} formulation that makes small-step RL value iteration provably equivalent to a forward Hamilton--Jacobi (HJ) equation with damping, we convert certified learning errors into calibrated inner/outer enclosures of strict backward reachable tube. The core device is an additive-offset identity: if WλW_\lambda solves the discounted travel-cost Hamilton--Jacobi--Bellman (HJB) equation, then Wε:=Wλ+εW_\varepsilon:=W_\lambda + \varepsilon solves the same PDE with a constant offset λε\lambda\varepsilon. This means that a uniform value error is \emph{exactly} equal to a constant HJB offset. We establish this uniform value error via two routes: (A) a Bellman operator-residual bound, and (B) a HJB PDE-slack bound. Our framework preserves HJ-level safety semantics and is compatible with deep RL. We demonstrate the approach on a double-integrator system by formally certifying, via satisfiability modulo theories (SMT), a value function learned through reinforcement learning to induce provably correct inner and outer backward-reachable set enclosures over a compact region of interest.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.16475,
  title  = {Certifying Hamilton-Jacobi Reachability Learned via Reinforcement Learning},
  author = {Prashant Solanki and Isabelle El-Hajj and Jasper J. van Beers and Erik-Jan van Kampen and Coen C. de Visser},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.16475},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:41:21.744Z