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This letter addresses the constraint compatibility problem of control barrier functions (CBFs), which occurs when a safety-critical CBF requires a system to apply more control effort than it is capable of generating. This inevitably leads…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-28 Logan E. Beaver

This paper introduces integral control barrier functions (I-CBFs) as a means to enable the safety-critical integral control of nonlinear systems. Importantly, I-CBFs allow for the holistic encoding of both state constraints and input bounds…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-07-09 Aaron D. Ames , Gennaro Notomista , Yorai Wardi , Magnus Egerstedt

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

Modern nonlinear control theory seeks to endow systems with properties of stability and safety, and have been deployed successfully in multiple domains. Despite this success, model uncertainty remains a significant challenge in synthesizing…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2019-12-24 Andrew Taylor , Andrew Singletary , Yisong Yue , Aaron Ames

This paper proposes a control design approach for stabilizing nonlinear control systems. Our key observation is that the set of points where the decrease condition of a control Lyapunov function (CLF) is feasible can be regarded as a safe…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-19 Pol Mestres , Kehan Long , Melvin Leok , Nikolay Atanasov , Jorge Cortes

Control barrier functions (CBFs) are a powerful tool for synthesizing safe control actions; however, constructing CBFs remains difficult for general nonlinear systems. In this work, we provide a constructive framework for synthesizing CBFs…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-09-04 Gilbert Bahati , Ryan K. Cosner , Max H. Cohen , Ryan M. Bena , Aaron D. Ames

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have recently been introduced as a systematic tool to ensure safety by establishing set invariance. When combined with a control Lyapunov function (CLF), they form a safety-critical control mechanism.…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-04-22 Mohammad Aali , Jun Liu

Recent work showed that stabilizing affine control systems to desired (sets of) states while optimizing quadratic costs and observing state and control constraints can be reduced to quadratic programs (QP) by using control barrier functions…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-02-12 Wei Xiao , Calin Belta , Christos G. Cassandras

Hybrid dynamical systems are ubiquitous as practical robotic applications often involve both continuous states and discrete switchings. Safety is a primary concern for hybrid robotic systems. Existing safety-critical control approaches for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-12-02 Shuo Yang , Yu Chen , Xiang Yin , George J. Pappas , Rahul Mangharam

This paper establishes relationships between continuous-time, receding horizon, nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) and control Lyapunov and control barrier functions (CLF/CBF). We show that, if the cost function "behaves well" for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-29 Jan Olucak , Arthur Castello B. de Oliveira , Torbjørn Cunis

Constructing a control invariant set with an appropriate shape that fits within a given state constraint is a fundamental problem in safety-critical control but is known to be difficult, especially for large or complex spaces. This paper…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-07-18 Inkyu Jang , H. Jin Kim

This paper addresses the problem of guaranteeing safety of multiple coordinated agents moving in dynamic environments. It has recently been shown that this problem can be efficiently solved through the notion of Control Barrier Functions…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-04-11 Aurora Haraldsen , Josef Matous , Kristin Y. Pettersen

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 (CBFs) are a practical approach for designing safety-critical controllers, but constructing them for arbitrary nonlinear dynamical systems remains a challenge. Recent efforts have explored learning-based methods,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-05-20 Manan Tayal , Aditya Singh , Pushpak Jagtap , Shishir Kolathaya

This paper addresses the problem of safety-critical control for non-affine control systems. It has been shown that optimizing quadratic costs subject to state and control constraints can be sub-optimally reduced to a sequence of quadratic…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-15 Wei Xiao , Ross Allen , Daniela Rus

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

Cyber-physical and autonomous systems are often equipped with mechanisms that provide predictions/projections of future disturbances, e.g., road curvatures, commonly referred to as preview or lookahead, but this preview information is…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-03-08 Tarun Pati , Seunghoon Hwang , Sze Zheng Yong

The control barrier function (CBF) has become a fundamental tool in safety-critical systems design since its invention. Typically, the quadratic optimization framework is employed to accommodate CBFs, control Lyapunov functions (CLFs),…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-17 Junjun Xie , Liang Hu , Jiahu Qin , Jun Yang , Huijun Gao

Reinforcement learning (RL) has proven to be particularly effective in solving complex decision-making problems for a wide range of applications. Safe reinforcement learning refers to a class of constrained problems where the constraint…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-05-13 Dhruv Singh Kushwaha , Zoleikha Abdollahi Biron

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have emerged as efficient tools to address the safe navigation problem for robot applications. However, synthesizing informative and obstacle motion-aware CBFs online using real-time sensor data remains…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-12-02 Xin Yin , Chenyang Liang , Yanning Guo , Jie Mei