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Safe control for inherently unstable systems such as quadrotors is crucial. Imposing multiple dynamic constraints simultaneously on the states for safety regulation can be a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a quadratic…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2022-03-08 Mouhyemen Khan , Munzir Zafar , Abhijit Chatterjee

This tutorial paper presents recent work of the authors that extends the theory of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to address practical challenges in the synthesis of safe controllers for autonomous systems and robots. We present novel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-12-29 Kunal Garg , James Usevitch , Joseph Breeden , Mitchell Black , Devansh Agrawal , Hardik Parwana , Dimitra Panagou

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have emerged as a powerful tool in the design of safety-critical controllers for nonlinear systems. In modern applications, complex systems often involve the feedback interconnection of subsystems evolving…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-03 Stefano Di Gregorio , Guido Carnevale , Giuseppe Notarstefano

In this draft article, we consider the problem of achieving safe control of a dynamic system for which the safety index or (control barrier function (loosely)) has relative degree equal to two. We consider parameter affine nonlinear dynamic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-26 Jaskaran Singh Grover , Changliu Liu , Katia Sycara

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

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

Control barrier functions (CBFs) are a popular approach to design feedback laws that achieve safety guarantees for nonlinear systems. The CBF-based controller design relies on the availability of a model to select feasible inputs from the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-17 Lukas Lanza , Johannes Köhler , Dario Dennstädt , Thomas Berger , Karl Worthmann

As modern systems become ever more connected with complex dynamic coupling relationships, developing safe control methods becomes paramount. In this paper, we discuss the relationship of node-level safety definitions for individual agents…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-16 Brooks A. Butler , Philip E. Paré

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…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-09 Patanjali Maithani , Aliasghar Arab , Farshad Khorrami , Prashanth Krishnamurthy

Control Barrier Function Quadratic Programs (CBF-QPs) have become a central tool for real-time safety-critical control due to their applicability to general control-affine systems and their ability to enforce constraints through…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-01-06 Yifan Xue , Nadia Figueroa

In this paper, we show that under mild controllability assumptions a time-invariant Control Barrier Function (CBF) can be constructed based on predictions with a finite horizon. As a starting point, we require only a known subset of a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-09-20 Adrian Wiltz , Xiao Tan , Dimos V. Dimarogonas

Balancing safety and performance is one of the predominant challenges in modern control system design. Moreover, it is crucial to robustly ensure safety without inducing unnecessary conservativeness that degrades performance. In this work…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-01-02 Anil Alan , Andrew J. Taylor , Chaozhe R. He , Aaron D. Ames , Gabor Orosz

We consider the problem of designing controllers to guarantee safety in a class of nonlinear systems under uncertainties in the system dynamics and/or the environment. We define a class of uncertain control barrier functions (CBFs), and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-09-20 Vipul K. Sharma , S. Sivaranjani

Set invariance techniques such as control barrier functions (CBFs) can be used to enforce time-varying constraints such as keeping a safe distance from dynamic objects. However, existing methods for enforcing time-varying constraints often…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-11-19 Yitaek Kim , Christoffer Sloth

In this paper, we propose a safety-critical controller based on time-varying control barrier functions (CBFs) for a robot with an unicycle model in the continuous-time domain to achieve navigation and dynamic collision avoidance. Unlike…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-07-18 Jihao Huang , Zhitao Liu , Jun Zeng , Xuemin Chi , Hongye Su

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) is an important tool used to address situations with multiple concurrent control objectives, such as safety and goal convergence. In this paper we investigate the similarities between CBFs and so-called…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-09-06 Petter Ögren

Ensuring the safety of control systems often requires the satisfaction of constraints on states (such as position or velocity), control inputs (such as force), and a mixture of states and inputs (such as power that depends on both velocity…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-19 Laszlo Gacsi , Adam K. Kiss , Ersin Das , Tamas G. Molnar

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have been widely utilized in the design of optimization-based controllers and filters for dynamical systems to ensure forward invariance of a given set of safe states. While CBF-based controllers offer…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-04-14 Damola Ajeyemi , Saber Jafarpour , Emiliano Dall'Anese

Obtaining control barrier functions (CBFs) with large safe sets for complex nonlinear systems and constraints is a challenging task. Predictive CBFs address this issue by using an online finite-horizon optimal control problem that…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-27 Kanghui He , Anil Alan , Shengling Shi , Ton van den Boom , Bart De Schutter

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) offer a framework for ensuring set invariance and designing constrained control laws. However, crafting a valid CBF relies on system-specific assumptions and the availability of an accurate system model,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-05-14 Mohammad Bajelani , Klaske van Heusden