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This paper addresses the problem of safety-critical control for non-affine control systems. It has been shown that optimizing quadratic costs subject to state and control constraints can be sub-optimally reduced to a sequence of quadratic…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-15 Wei Xiao , Ross Allen , Daniela Rus

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

This paper introduces the notion of an Input Constrained Control Barrier Function (ICCBF), as a method to synthesize safety-critical controllers for non-linear control affine systems with input constraints. The method identifies a subset of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-15 Devansh Agrawal , Dimitra Panagou

This paper considers the safety-critical control design problem with output measurements. An observer-based safety control framework that integrates the estimation error quantified observer and the control barrier function (CBF) approach is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-24 Yujie Wang , Xiangru Xu

Control systems operating in the real world face countless sources of unpredictable uncertainties. These random disturbances can render deterministic guarantees inapplicable and cause catastrophic safety failures. To overcome this, this…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-02-10 Pol Mestres , Blake Werner , Ryan K. Cosner , Aaron D. Ames

The increasing complexity of control systems necessitates control laws that guarantee safety w.r.t. complex combinations of constraints. In this letter, we propose a framework to describe compositional safety specifications with control…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-12-05 Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames

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

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

Learning-based control has recently shown great efficacy in performing complex tasks for various applications. However, to deploy it in real systems, it is of vital importance to guarantee the system will stay safe. Control Barrier…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-05 Fernando Castañeda , Jason J. Choi , Wonsuhk Jung , Bike Zhang , Claire J. Tomlin , Koushil Sreenath

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

This paper presents a novel safety filter framework that ensures both safety and the preservation of the legacy control action within a nominal region. This modular design allows the safety filter to be integrated into the control hierarchy…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-01-21 Michael Schneeberger , Silvia Mastellone , Florian Dörfler

Construction automation increasingly requires autonomous mobile robots, yet robust autonomy remains challenging on construction sites. These environments are dynamic and often visually occluded, which complicates perception and navigation.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-16 Johannes Mootz , Reza Akhavian

This paper introduces integral control barrier functions (I-CBFs) as a means to enable the safety-critical integral control of nonlinear systems. Importantly, I-CBFs allow for the holistic encoding of both state constraints and input bounds…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-07-09 Aaron D. Ames , Gennaro Notomista , Yorai Wardi , Magnus Egerstedt

Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide a rigorous framework for designing controllers enforcing safety constraints. While CBF theory is well-developed for a finite number of safety constraints, certain applications, e.g., backup CBFs,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-20 Max H. Cohen , Pio Ong , Pol Mestres , Aaron D. Ames

Polygonal collision avoidance (PCA) is short for the problem of collision avoidance between two polygons (i.e., polytopes in planar) that own their dynamic equations. This problem suffers the inherent difficulty in dealing with non-smooth…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-14 Shizhen Wu , Yongchun Fang , Ning Sun , Biao Lu , Xiao Liang , Yiming Zhao

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…

We introduce a novel approach for safe control design based on the density function. A control density function (CDF) is introduced to synthesize a safe controller for a nonlinear dynamic system. The CDF can be viewed as a dual to the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-07-09 Joseph Moyalan , Sriram S. K. S Narayanan , Umesh Vaidya

Safety is a critical property for control systems in medicine, transportation, manufacturing, and other applications, and can be defined as ensuring positive invariance of a predefined safe set. This paper investigates the problems of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-11-12 Andrew Clark

Robust control barrier functions (CBFs) provide a principled mechanism for smooth safety enforcement under worst-case disturbances. However, existing approaches typically rely on explicit, closed-form structure in the dynamics (e.g.,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-16 Donggeon David Oh , Duy P. Nguyen , Haimin Hu , Jaime Fernández Fisac

Control barrier functions (CBFs) play a critical role in the design of safe optimization-based controllers for control-affine systems. Given a CBF associated with a desired ``safe'' set, the typical approach consists in embedding CBF-based…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-12 Yiting Chen , Pol Mestres , Jorge Cortes , Emiliano Dall'Anese