Related papers: A Control Barrier Perspective on Episodic Learning…
Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have become a popular tool for enforcing set invariance in safety-critical control systems. While guaranteeing safety, most CBF approaches are myopic in the sense that they solve an optimization problem at…
Safety filters based on control barrier functions (CBFs) have become a popular method to guarantee safety for uncertified control policies, e.g., as resulting from reinforcement learning. Here, safety is defined as staying in a pre-defined…
Safe reinforcement learning (RL) with assured satisfaction of hard state constraints during training has recently received a lot of attention. Safety filters, e.g., based on control barrier functions (CBFs), provide a promising way for safe…
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…
Optimal control strategies are often combined with safety certificates to ensure both performance and safety in safety-critical systems. A prominent example is combining Model Predictive Control (MPC) with Control Barrier Functions (CBF).…
Set invariance techniques such as control barrier functions (CBFs) can be used to enforce time-varying constraints such as keeping a safe distance from dynamic objects. However, existing methods for enforcing time-varying constraints often…
Safety filters based on Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) provide formal guarantees of forward invariance, but are often difficult to implement in networked dynamical systems. This is due to global coupling and communication requirements.…
This tutorial paper presents recent work of the authors that extends the theory of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to address practical challenges in the synthesis of safe controllers for autonomous systems and robots. We present novel…
The optimal performance of robotic systems is usually achieved near the limit of state and input bounds. Model predictive control (MPC) is a prevalent strategy to handle these operational constraints, however, safety still remains an open…
A combination of control Lyapunov functions (CLFs) and control barrier functions (CBFs) forms an efficient framework for addressing control challenges in safe stabilization. In our previous research, we developed an analytical control…
Merely pursuing performance may adversely affect the safety, while a conservative policy for safe exploration will degrade the performance. How to balance the safety and performance in learning-based control problems is an interesting yet…
Safety critical systems involve the tight coupling between potentially conflicting control objectives and safety constraints. As a means of creating a formal framework for controlling systems of this form, and with a view toward automotive…
While learning-based control techniques often outperform classical controller designs, safety requirements limit the acceptance of such methods in many applications. Recent developments address this issue through so-called predictive safety…
This paper considers the safety-critical navigation problem with Signal Temporal Logic (STL) tasks. We developed an explicit reference governor-guided control barrier function (ERG-guided CBF) method that enables the application of…
The increasing complexity of modern robotic systems and the environments they operate in necessitates the formal consideration of safety in the presence of imperfect measurements. In this paper we propose a rigorous framework for…
Industrial control applications require high performance under strict constraints. Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide principled safety mechanisms, but constructing CBF-based safety filters for large-scale systems is challenging. We…
Learning-based approaches for constructing Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are increasingly being explored for safety-critical control systems. However, these methods typically require complete retraining when applied to unseen…
As autonomous systems become more ubiquitous in daily life, ensuring high performance with guaranteed safety is crucial. However, safety and performance could be competing objectives, which makes their co-optimization difficult.…
This paper presents a safety-guaranteed, runtime-efficient imitation learning framework for spacecraft close proximity control. We leverage Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) for safety certificates and Control Lyapunov Functions (CLFs) for…
The ability to learn and execute optimal control policies safely is critical to realization of complex autonomy, especially where task restarts are not available and/or the systems are safety-critical. Safety requirements are often…