English

Computing Safe Control Inputs using Discrete-Time Matrix Control Barrier Functions via Convex Optimization

Systems and Control 2025-10-14 v1 Robotics Systems and Control

Abstract

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have seen widespread success in providing forward invariance and safety guarantees for dynamical control systems. A crucial limitation of discrete-time formulations is that CBFs that are nonconcave in their argument require the solution of nonconvex optimization problems to compute safety-preserving control inputs, which inhibits real-time computation of control inputs guaranteeing forward invariance. This paper presents a novel method for computing safety-preserving control inputs for discrete-time systems with nonconvex safety sets, utilizing convex optimization and the recently developed class of matrix control barrier function techniques. The efficacy of our methods is demonstrated through numerical simulations on a bicopter system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.09925,
  title  = {Computing Safe Control Inputs using Discrete-Time Matrix Control Barrier Functions via Convex Optimization},
  author = {James Usevitch and Juan Augusto Paredes Salazar and Ankit Goel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.09925},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

17 pages, 8 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:30:43.490Z