Related papers: Model-Free Safety-Critical Control for Robotic Sys…
In modern robotics, addressing the lack of accurate state space information in real-world scenarios has led to a significant focus on utilizing visuomotor observation to provide safety assurances. Although supervised learning methods, such…
An outstanding challenge for the widespread deployment of robotic systems like autonomous vehicles is ensuring safe interaction with humans without sacrificing performance. Existing safety methods often neglect the robot's ability to learn…
Model-based reinforcement learning (RL) has emerged as a promising tool for developing controllers for real world systems (e.g., robotics, autonomous driving, etc.). However, real systems often have constraints imposed on their state space…
This paper proposes a novel framework for safety-critical optimal trajectory tracking in nonlinear systems based on the state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) methodology. By embedding barrier states into the system dynamics, the proposed…
In this paper, we present a novel probabilistic safe control framework for human-robot interaction that combines control barrier functions (CBFs) with conformal risk control to provide formal safety guarantees while considering complex…
Ensuring safety in the sense of constraint satisfaction for learning-based control is a critical challenge, especially in the model-free case. While safety filters address this challenge in the model-based setting by modifying unsafe…
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…
We propose a novel class of risk-aware control barrier functions (RA-CBFs) for the control of stochastic safety-critical systems. Leveraging a result from the stochastic level-crossing literature, we deviate from the martingale theory that…
The development of control techniques to maintain vehicle stability under possible loss-of-control scenarios is essential to the safe deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in public scenarios. In this paper, we propose a tube-based…
Monotone systems, also known as order-preserving or cooperative systems, are prevalent in models of engineering applications such as transportation and biological networks. In this paper, we investigate the problem of finding a control…
Control certificates based on barrier functions have been a powerful tool to generate probably safe control policies for dynamical systems. However, existing methods based on barrier certificates are normally for white-box systems with…
This tutorial provides a critical review of the practical application of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) in robotic safety. While the theoretical foundations of CBFs are well-established, I identify a recurring gap between the mathematical…
The proven efficacy of learning-based control schemes strongly motivates their application to robotic systems operating in the physical world. However, guaranteeing correct operation during the learning process is currently an unresolved…
Motivated by the lack of systematic tools to obtain safe control laws for hybrid systems, we propose an optimization-based framework for learning certifiably safe control laws from data. In particular, we assume a setting in which the…
Electric-powered wheelchair plays an important role in providing accessibility for people with mobility impairment. Ensuring the safety of wheelchair operation in different application scenarios and for diverse users is crucial when the…
Industrial manipulators are normally operated in cluttered environments, making safe motion planning important. Furthermore, the presence of model-uncertainties make safe motion planning more difficult. Therefore, in practice the speed is…
In collaborative human-robot environments, the unpredictable and dynamic nature of human motion can lead to situations where collisions become unavoidable. In such cases, it is essential for the robotic system to proactively mitigate…
This paper provides an introduction and overview of recent work on control barrier functions and their use to verify and enforce safety properties in the context of (optimization based) safety-critical controllers. We survey the main…
This paper generalizes the control barrier function framework by replacing scalar-valued functions with matrix-valued ones. Specifically, we develop barrier conditions for safe sets defined by matrix inequalities -- both semidefinite and…
Designing a model predictive control (MPC) scheme that enables a mobile robot to safely navigate through an obstacle-filled environment is a complicated yet essential task in robotics. In this technical report, safety refers to ensuring…