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Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) provide an elegant framework for constraining nonlinear control system dynamics to remain within an invariant subset of a designated safe set. However, identifying a CBF that balances performance-by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-05 Lakshmideepakreddy Manda , Shaoru Chen , Mahyar Fazlyab

Using control barrier functions (CBFs) as safety filters provides a computationally inexpensive yet effective method for constructing controllers in safety-critical applications. However, using CBFs requires the construction of a valid CBF,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-15 Bolun Dai , Prashanth Krishnamurthy , Farshad Khorrami

High performance, reliability and safety are crucial properties of any Software-Defined-Networking (SDN) system. Although the use of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms has been widely studied to improve performance, their…

Networking and Internet Architecture · Computer Science 2024-10-23 Lam Dinh , Pham Tran Anh Quang , Jérémie Leguay

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

Learning-based controllers, such as neural network (NN) controllers, can show high empirical performance but lack formal safety guarantees. To address this issue, control barrier functions (CBFs) have been applied as a safety filter to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-01-10 Shuo Yang , Shaoru Chen , Victor M. Preciado , Rahul Mangharam

Safety is of great importance in multi-robot navigation problems. In this paper, we propose a control barrier function (CBF) based optimizer that ensures robot safety with both high probability and flexibility, using only sensor…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-09-17 Yuxiang Cui , Longzhong Lin , Xiaolong Huang , Dongkun Zhang , Yue Wang , Rong Xiong

This paper develops a model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) framework for learning online the value function of an infinite-horizon optimal control problem while obeying safety constraints expressed as control barrier functions (CBFs).…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-10 Max H. Cohen , Calin Belta

Control barrier functions (CBFs) are widely used in safety-critical controllers. However, constructing a valid CBF is challenging, especially under nonlinear or non-convex constraints and for high relative degree systems. Meanwhile, finding…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-10-12 Bolun Dai , Prashanth Krishnamurthy , Farshad Khorrami

Though deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has obtained substantial success, it may encounter catastrophic failures due to the intrinsic uncertainty of both transition and observation. Most of the existing methods for safe reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Chengyang Ying , Xinning Zhou , Hang Su , Dong Yan , Ning Chen , Jun Zhu

Reinforcement Learning (RL) uses rewards to guide learning, yet reward design is typically hand-crafted using heuristics that can be difficult to tune. We propose a Control Barrier Function (CBF)-informed reward design for Multi-Agent RL…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Jianye Xu , Bassam Alrifaee

Reinforcement learning (RL) exhibits impressive performance when managing complicated control tasks for robots. However, its wide application to physical robots is limited by the absence of strong safety guarantees. To overcome this…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-05-18 Desong Du , Shaohang Han , Naiming Qi , Haitham Bou Ammar , Jun Wang , Wei Pan

In this paper, we consider the problem of safe control synthesis of general controlled nonlinear systems in the presence of bounded additive disturbances. Towards this aim, we first construct a governing augmented state space model…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-10-02 Vrushabh Zinage , Rohan Chandra , Efstathios Bakolas

Safety filters, particularly those based on control barrier functions, have gained increased interest as effective tools for safe control of dynamical systems. Existing correct-by-construction synthesis algorithms for such filters, however,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-19 Ihab Tabbara , Hussein Sibai

Safe reinforcement learning (RL) trains a policy to maximize the task reward while satisfying safety constraints. While prior works focus on the performance optimality, we find that the optimal solutions of many safe RL problems are not…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-03 Zuxin Liu , Zijian Guo , Zhepeng Cen , Huan Zhang , Jie Tan , Bo Li , Ding Zhao

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been widely used for synthesizing controllers in safety-critical applications. When used as a safety filter, it provides a simple and computationally efficient way to obtain safe controls from a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-03-13 Bolun Dai , Heming Huang , Prashanth Krishnamurthy , Farshad Khorrami

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have proven to be an effective tool for performing safe control synthesis for nonlinear systems. However, guaranteeing safety in the presence of disturbances and input constraints for high relative degree…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-21 Luzia Knoedler , Oswin So , Ji Yin , Mitchell Black , Zachary Serlin , Panagiotis Tsiotras , Javier Alonso-Mora , Chuchu Fan

This paper proposes a safe reinforcement learning filter (SRLF) to realize multicopter collision-free trajectory tracking with input disturbance. A novel robust control barrier function (RCBF) with its analysis techniques is introduced to…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-10-10 Qihan Qi , Xinsong Yang , Gang Xia

Safety and stability are two critical concerns in pursuit-evasion (PE) problems in an obstacle-rich environment. Most existing works combine control barrier functions (CBFs) and reinforcement learning (RL) to provide an efficient and safe…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-07-29 Xinyang Wang , Hongwei Zhang , Jun Xu , Shimin Wang , Martin Guay

Optimal control methods provide solutions to safety-critical problems but easily become intractable. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have emerged as a popular technique that facilitates their solution by provably guaranteeing safety,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-02-21 Ehsan Sabouni , H. M. Sabbir Ahmad , Vittorio Giammarino , Christos G. Cassandras , Ioannis Ch. Paschalidis , Wenchao Li

Control barrier functions-based quadratic programming (CBF-QP) is gaining popularity as an effective controller synthesis tool for safe control. However, the provable safety is established on an accurate dynamic model and access to all…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-08-29 Jinfeng Chen , Zhiqiang Gao , Qin Lin