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Related papers: Safe Backstepping with Control Barrier Functions

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This paper investigates the problem of composing multiple control barrier functions (CBFs) -- and matrix control barrier functions (MCBFs) -- through logical and combinatorial operations. Standard CBF formulations naturally enable…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-22 Pio Ong , Haejoon Lee , Tamas G. Molnar , Dimitra Panagou , Aaron D. Ames

In this paper, the safety-critical control problem for uncertain systems under multiple control barrier function (CBF) constraints and input constraints is investigated. A novel framework is proposed to generate a safety filter that…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-03-21 Jinyang Dong , Shizhen Wu , Rui Liu , Xiao Liang , Biao Lu , Yongchun Fang

Safe control with guarantees generally requires the system model to be known. It is far more challenging to handle systems with uncertain parameters. In this paper, we propose a generic algorithm that can synthesize and verify safe…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-12 Simin Liu , Kai S. Yun , John M. Dolan , Changliu Liu

Learning-based control with safety guarantees usually requires real-time safety certification and modifications of possibly unsafe learning-based policies. The control barrier function (CBF) method uses a safety filter containing a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-10-25 Kanghui He , Shengling Shi , Ton van den Boom , Bart De Schutter

In this paper, we propose a quadratic programming-based filter for safe and stable controller design, via a Control Barrier Function (CBF) and a Control Lyapunov Function (CLF). Our method guarantees safety and local asymptotic stability…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-07-02 Han Wang , Kostas Margellos , Antonis Papachristodoulou

Control barrier functions (CBFs) recently introduced a systematic way to guarantee the system's safety through set invariance. Together with a nominal control method, it establishes a safety-critical control mechanism. The resulting safety…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-09-13 Mohammad Aali , Jun Liu

This paper introduces differentiable higher-order control barrier functions (CBF) that are end-to-end trainable together with learning systems. CBFs are usually overly conservative, while guaranteeing safety. Here, we address their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-23 Wei Xiao , Ramin Hasani , Xiao Li , Daniela Rus

While control barrier functions (CBFs) are employed in addressing safety, control synthesis methods based on them generally rely on accurate system dynamics. This is a critical limitation, since the dynamics of complex systems are often not…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-02 Armin Lederer , Azra Begzadić , Sandra Hirche , Jorge Cortés , Sylvia Herbert

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

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

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…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-08-22 Mitchell Black , Georgios Fainekos , Bardh Hoxha , Danil Prokhorov , Dimitra Panagou

High-relative-degree control barrier functions (hi-rel-deg CBFs) play a prominent role in automotive safety and in robotics. In this paper we launch a generalization of this concept for PDE control, treating a specific, physically-relevant…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-03 Shumon Koga , Miroslav Krstic

Control barrier functions (CBFs) are a powerful tool for the constrained control of nonlinear systems; however, the majority of results in the literature focus on systems subject to a single CBF constraint, making it challenging to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-09-05 Max H. Cohen , Eugene Lavretsky , Aaron D. Ames

We consider the problem of safely coordinating ensembles of identical autonomous agents to conduct complex missions with conflicting safety requirements and under noisy control inputs. Using non-smooth control barrier functions (CBFs) and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-03-29 Clinton Enwerem , John S. Baras

Endowing nonlinear systems with safe behavior is increasingly important in modern control. This task is particularly challenging for real-life control systems that must operate safely in dynamically changing environments. This paper…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-12-06 Tamas G. Molnar , Adam K. Kiss , Aaron D. Ames , Gábor Orosz

This paper presents a general end-to-end framework for constructing robust and reliable layered safety filters that can be leveraged to perform dynamic collision avoidance over a broad range of applications using only local perception data.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Erina Yamaguchi , Ryan M. Bena , Gilbert Bahati , Aaron D. Ames

Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide a principled framework for enforcing safety in control systems -- yet the certified safe operating region in practice is often conservative, especially under input bounds. In many applications,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-07 Pio Ong , David E. J. van Wijk , Massimiliano de Sa , Joel W. Burdick , Aaron D. Ames

Barrier functions (also called certificates) have been an important tool for the verification of hybrid systems, and have also played important roles in optimization and multi-objective control. The extension of a barrier function to a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-12-07 Xiangru Xu , Paulo Tabuada , Jessy W. Grizzle , Aaron D. Ames

Autonomous robot navigation can be particularly demanding, especially when the surrounding environment is not known and safety of the robot is crucial. This work relates to the synthesis of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) through data for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-07-30 Marvin Harms , Mihir Kulkarni , Nikhil Khedekar , Martin Jacquet , Kostas Alexis

This paper studies the problem of utilizing data-driven adaptive control techniques to guarantee stability and safety of uncertain nonlinear systems with high relative degree. We first introduce the notion of a High Order Robust Adaptive…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-10-11 Max H. Cohen , Calin Belta