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Related papers: Robust Control Barrier Functions under High Relati…

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We address the problem of optimizing the performance of a dynamic system while satisfying hard safety constraints at all times. Implementing an optimal control solution is limited by the computational cost required to derive it in real…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-08-19 Wei Xiao , Christos G. Cassandras , Calin A. Belta

This paper presents a strategy for control of a spacecraft docking with a non-maneuvering target in the presence of safety constraints and bounded disturbances. The presence of disturbances prevents convergence to a unique docking state, so…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-01-03 Joseph Breeden , Dimitra Panagou

Ensuring safe exploration in high-dimensional systems with unknown dynamics remains a significant challenge. Existing safe reinforcement learning methods often provide safety guarantees only in expectation, which can still lead to safety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Rahul Narava , Siddharth Verma , Ojas Jain , Shashi Shekhar Jha , Mayank Shekhar Jha

This paper introduces harmonic control Lyapunov barrier functions (harmonic CLBF) that aid in constrained control problems such as reach-avoid problems. Harmonic CLBFs exploit the maximum principle that harmonic functions satisfy to encode…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-27 Amartya Mukherjee , Ruikun Zhou , Haocheng Chang , Jun Liu

Ensuring both performance and safety is critical for autonomous systems operating in real-world environments. While safety filters such as Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) enforce constraints by modifying nominal controllers in real time,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-07-21 Aditya Singh , Aastha Mishra , Manan Tayal , Shishir Kolathaya , Pushpak Jagtap

Learning-based methods have gained popularity for training candidate Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to satisfy the CBF conditions on a finite set of sampled states. However, since the CBF is unknown a priori, it is unclear which sampled…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-17 Erfan Shakhesi , Alexander Katriniok , W. P. M. H. Heemels

We study the problem of verification and synthesis of robust control barrier functions (CBF) for control-affine polynomial systems with bounded additive uncertainty and convex polynomial constraints on the control. We first formulate robust…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-25 Shucheng Kang , Yuxiao Chen , Heng Yang , Marco Pavone

This paper studies safety and feasibility guarantees for systems with tight control bounds. It has been shown that stabilizing an affine control system while optimizing a quadratic cost and satisfying state and control constraints can be…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-10 Shuo Liu , Wei Xiao , Calin A. Belta

This paper presents a safety-critical approach to the coordination of robots in dynamic environments. To this end, we leverage control barrier functions (CBFs) with the forward reachable set to guarantee the safe coordination of the robots…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-12-15 Jeeseop Kim , Jaemin Lee , Aaron D. Ames

The increasing complexity of control systems necessitates control laws that guarantee safety w.r.t. complex combinations of constraints. In this letter, we propose a framework to describe compositional safety specifications with control…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-12-05 Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames

Safety filters leveraging control barrier functions (CBFs) are highly effective for enforcing safe behavior on complex systems. It is often easier to synthesize CBFs for a Reduced order Model (RoM), and track the resulting safe behavior on…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-12-09 William D. Compton , Max H. Cohen , Aaron D. Ames

In this draft article, we consider the problem of achieving safe control of a dynamic system for which the safety index or (control barrier function (loosely)) has relative degree equal to two. We consider parameter affine nonlinear dynamic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-26 Jaskaran Singh Grover , Changliu Liu , Katia Sycara

This paper presents a framework for designing provably safe feedback controllers for sampled-data control affine systems with measurement and actuation uncertainties. Based on the interval Taylor model of nonlinear functions, a sampled-data…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-13 Yuhao Zhang , Sequoyah Walters , Xiangru Xu

Control barrier functions (CBFs) are a popular approach to design feedback laws that achieve safety guarantees for nonlinear systems. The CBF-based controller design relies on the availability of a model to select feasible inputs from the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-17 Lukas Lanza , Johannes Köhler , Dario Dennstädt , Thomas Berger , Karl Worthmann

In safety-critical control systems, ensuring both safety and feasibility under sampled-data implementations is crucial for practical deployment. Existing Control Barrier Function (CBF) frameworks, such as High-Order CBFs (HOCBFs),…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-09 Shuo Liu , Wei Xiao , Calin A. Belta

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-02-27 Aaron D. Ames , Xiangru Xu , Jessy W. Grizzle , Paulo Tabuada

In this paper, we propose a new class of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) that help avoid collisions with kinematic (non-zero velocity) obstacles. While the current forms of CBFs have been successful in…

Safety stands as the primary obstacle preventing the widespread adoption of learning-based robotic systems in our daily lives. While reinforcement learning (RL) shows promise as an effective robot learning paradigm, conventional RL…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-05-27 Maeva Guerrier , Karthik Soma , Hassan Fouad , Giovanni Beltrame

This paper addresses learning safe output feedback control laws from partial observations of expert demonstrations. We assume that a model of the system dynamics and a state estimator are available along with corresponding error bounds,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-04-04 Lars Lindemann , Alexander Robey , Lejun Jiang , Satyajeet Das , Stephen Tu , Nikolai Matni

Time delays in feedback control loops can cause controllers to respond too late, and with excessively large corrective actions, leading to unsafe behavior (violation of state constraints) and controller infeasibility (violation of input…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-26 Adam K. Kiss , Ersin Das , Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames