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Training-time safety violations have been a major concern when we deploy reinforcement learning algorithms in the real world. This paper explores the possibility of safe RL algorithms with zero training-time safety violations in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-14 Yuping Luo , Tengyu Ma

This paper presents a novel approach for synthesizing control barrier functions (CBFs) from high relative degree safety constraints: Rectified CBFs (ReCBFs). We begin by discussing the limitations of existing High-Order CBF approaches and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-01-06 Pio Ong , Max H. Cohen , Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been demonstrated as an effective method for safety-critical control of autonomous systems. Although CBFs are simple to deploy, their design remains challenging, motivating the development of…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Bojan Derajić , Sebastian Bernhard , Wolfgang Hönig

Ensuring robot safety in complex environments is a difficult task due to actuation limits, such as torque bounds. This paper presents a safety-critical control framework that leverages learning-based switching between multiple backup…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-03-08 Neil C. Janwani , Ersin Daş , Thomas Touma , Skylar X. Wei , Tamas G. Molnar , Joel W. Burdick

In this paper, we propose a novel approach to synthesize linear feedback controllers for navigating in polygonal environments using noisy measurements and a convex cell decomposition. Our method is based on formulating chance constraints…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-22 Chenfei Wang , Mahroo Bahreinian , Roberto Tron

Control Barrier Functions (CBF) have been recently utilized in the design of provably safe feedback control laws for nonlinear systems. These feedback control methods typically compute the next control input by solving an online Quadratic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-01-23 Shakiba Yaghoubi , Georgios Fainekos , Sriram Sankaranarayanan

This paper considers the general problem of transitioning theoretically safe controllers to hardware. Concretely, we explore the application of control barrier functions (CBFs) to sampled-data systems: systems that evolve continuously but…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-05-14 Andrew Singletary , Yuxiao Chen , Aaron D. Ames

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

The applicability of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms in real-world domains often requires adherence to safety constraints, a need difficult to address given the asymptotic nature of the classic RL optimization objective. In contrast…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-15 Moritz A. Zanger , Karam Daaboul , J. Marius Zöllner

Control barrier functions (CBFs) offer an efficient framework for designing real-time safe controllers. However, CBF-based controllers can be short-sighted, resulting in poor performance, a behaviour which is aggravated in uncertain…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-16 Allan Andre do Nascimento , Antonis Papachristodoulou , Kostas Margellos

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been widely applied to safety-critical robotic applications. However, the construction of control barrier functions for robotic systems remains a challenging task. Recently, collision detection using…

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

Model mismatches prevail in real-world applications. Ensuring safety for systems with uncertain dynamic models is critical. However, existing robust safe controllers may not be realizable when control limits exist. And existing methods use…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-08 Tianhao Wei , Shucheng Kang , Weiye Zhao , Changliu Liu

In this paper, a novel online, output-feedback, critic-only, model-based reinforcement learning framework is developed for safety-critical control systems operating in complex environments. The developed framework ensures system stability…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-06-28 Tochukwu Elijah Ogri , Muzaffar Qureshi , Zachary I. Bell , Rushikesh Kamalapurkar

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

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) is a powerful method for enabling robots to perform novel tasks as it is often more tractable for a non-roboticist end-user to demonstrate the desired skill and for the robot to efficiently learn from the…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-08 Yue Yang , Letian Chen , Matthew Gombolay

Ensuring safety for black-box hybrid dynamical systems presents significant challenges due to their instantaneous state jumps and unknown explicit nonlinear dynamics. Existing solutions for strict safety constraint satisfaction, like…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-27 Aayushi Shrivastava , Kartik Nagpal , Sairam Jinkala , Jean-Baptiste Bouvier , Negar Mehr

This paper presents a new approach for guaranteed safety subject to input constraints (e.g., actuator limits) using a composition of multiple control barrier functions (CBFs). First, we present a method for constructing a single CBF from…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-10 Pedram Rabiee , Jesse B. Hoagg

Discrete-time Control Barrier Functions (DTCBFs) form a powerful control theoretic tool to guarantee safety and synthesize safe controllers for discrete-time dynamical systems. In this paper, we provide an optimization-based algorithm,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-24 Erfan Shakhesi , W. P. M. H. Heemels , Alexander Katriniok

We propose integrating an approximation of a predictive control barrier function (PCBF) in a safety filter framework, resulting in a prediction horizon independent formulation. The PCBF is defined through the value function of an optimal…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-08-26 Alexandre Didier , Melanie N. Zeilinger