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Related papers: Control Barrier Functions: Theory and Applications

200 papers

Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide a powerful tool for enforcing safety constraints in control systems, but their direct application to complex, high-dimensional dynamics is often challenging. In many settings, safety certificates are…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-17 Nikolaos Bousias , Charalampia Stamouli , Anastasios Tsiamis , George Pappas

Deploying safety-critical controllers in practice necessitates the ability to modulate uncertainties in control systems. In this context, robust control barrier functions -- in a variety of forms -- have been used to obtain safety…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-03-22 Anil Alan , Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames , Gábor Orosz

Over the decades, kinematic controllers have proven to be practically useful for applications like set-point and trajectory tracking in robotic systems. To this end, we formulate a novel safety-critical paradigm for kinematic control in…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-09-22 Andrew Singletary , Shishir Kolathaya , Aaron D. Ames

Many systems occurring in real-world applications, such as controlling the motions of robots or modeling the spread of diseases, are switched impulsive systems. To ensure that the system state stays in a safe region (e.g., to avoid…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-10 Katharina Bieker , Hugo Tadashi Kussaba , Philipp Scholl , Jaesug Jung , Abdalla Swikir , Sami Haddadin , Gitta Kutyniok

Safety is of paramount importance in control systems to avoid costly risks and catastrophic damages. The control barrier function (CBF) method, a promising solution for safety-critical control, poses a new challenge of enhancing control…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-03-26 Shengbo Wang , Ke Li , Zheng Yan , Zhenyuan Guo , Song Zhu , Guanghui Wen , Shiping Wen

This paper focuses on safety critical control with sector-bounded uncertainties at the plant input. The uncertainties can represent nonlinear and/or time-varying components. We propose a new robust control barrier function (RCBF) approach…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-07 Jyot Buch , Shih-Chi Liao , Peter Seiler

Control barrier functions guarantee safety but typically require accurate system models. Parametric uncertainty invalidates these guarantees. Existing robust methods maintain safety via worst-case bounds, limiting performance, while modular…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-01-27 Mohammadreza Kamaldar

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are an effective methodology to ensure safety and performative efficacy in real-time control applications such as power systems, resource allocation, autonomous vehicles, robotics, etc. This approach ensures…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-30 Samy Wu Fung , Levon Nurbekyan

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has enabled vast performance improvements for robotics systems. To achieve these results though, the agent often must randomly explore the environment, which for safety critical systems presents a significant…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-05-12 Eric Squires , Phillip Odom , Zsolt Kira

In this letter we propose a holistic analysis merging the techniques of passivity-based control (PBC) and control barrier functions (CBF). We constructively find conditions under which passivity of the closed-loop system is preserved under…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-15 Federico Califano

We study stochastic systems characterized by difference inclusions. Such stochastic differential inclusions are defined by set-valued maps involving the current state and stochastic input. For such systems, we investigate the problem of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-29 Masoumeh Ghanbarpour , Sriram Sankaranarayanan

Guaranteeing safety for robotic and autonomous systems in real-world environments is a challenging task that requires the mitigation of stochastic uncertainties. Control barrier functions have, in recent years, been widely used for…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-03-31 Andrew Singletary , Mohamadreza Ahmadi , Aaron D. Ames

This work provides formal safety guarantees for control systems with disturbance. A disturbance observer-based robust safety-critical controller is proposed, that estimates the effect of the disturbance on safety and utilizes this estimate…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-01-05 Anil Alan , Tamas G. Molnar , Ersin Das , Aaron D. Ames , Gabor Orosz

The prolific rise in autonomous systems has led to questions regarding their safe instantiation in real-world scenarios. Failures in safety-critical contexts such as human-robot interactions or even autonomous driving can ultimately lead to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-04-10 Prithvi Akella , Mohamadreza Ahmadi , Richard M. Murray , Aaron D. Ames

In this paper, we develop a novel adaptation-based approach to constrained control design under multiple state and input constraints. Specifically, we introduce a method for synthesizing any number of time-varying candidate control barrier…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-04-05 Mitchell Black , Dimitra Panagou

This paper focuses on safety filters designed based on Control Barrier Functions (CBFs): these are modifications of a nominal stabilizing controller typically utilized in safety-critical control applications to render a given subset of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-17 Pol Mestres , Yiting Chen , Emiliano Dall'anese , Jorge Cortés

Control barrier functions provide a powerful means for synthesizing safety filters that ensure safety framed as forward set invariance. Key to CBFs' effectiveness is the simple inequality on the system dynamics: $\dot{h} \geq - \alpha(h)$.…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-07-18 Pio Ong , Max H. Cohen , Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames

This paper introduces control barrier functions for discrete-time systems, which can be shown to be necessary and sufficient for controlled invariance of a given set. Moreover, we propose nonlinear discrete-time control barrier functions…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-04-07 Matthew Cavorsi , Mohammad Khajenejad , Ruochen Niu , Qiang Shen , Sze Zheng Yong

This paper develops a control approach with correctness guarantees for the simultaneous operation of lane keeping and adaptive cruise control. The safety specifications for these driver assistance modules are expressed in terms of set…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-05-09 Xiangru Xu , Jessy W. Grizzle , Paulo Tabuada , Aaron D. Ames

Control barrier functions (CBFs) and Hamilton-Jacobi reachability (HJR) are central frameworks in safe control. Traditionally, these frameworks have been viewed as distinct, with the former focusing on optimally safe controller design and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-14 Dylan Hirsch , Jaime Fernández Fisac , Sylvia Herbert