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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

In this work, we address the problem of ensuring real-time safety in autonomous robot navigation, in spatially constrained dynamic environments, by utilizing only onboard sensors. We present a real-time control architecture that integrates…

Modern nonlinear control theory seeks to endow systems with properties of stability and safety, and have been deployed successfully in multiple domains. Despite this success, model uncertainty remains a significant challenge in synthesizing…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2019-12-24 Andrew Taylor , Andrew Singletary , Yisong Yue , Aaron Ames

Passivity is necessary for robots to fluidly collaborate and interact with humans physically. Nevertheless, due to the unconstrained nature of passivity-based impedance control laws, the robot is vulnerable to infeasible and unsafe…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-03-18 Zhiquan Zhang , Tianyu Li , Nadia Figueroa

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) can provide provable safety guarantees for dynamic systems. However, finding a valid CBF for a system of interest is often non-trivial, especially for systems having low computational resources, higher-order…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-06 Mattias Trende , Petter Ögren

Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide an effective framework for enforcing safety in dynamical systems with scalar constraints. However, many safety constraints are more naturally expressed as matrix-valued conditions, such as positive…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-07 Samuel G. Gessow , Pio Ong , Aaron D. Ames , Brett T. Lopez

Guiding the visually impaired in complex environments requires real-time two-way interaction and safety assurance. We propose a Force-Compliance Model Predictive Control (FC-MPC) and Robot-User Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-08-06 Zehua Fan , Feng Gao , Zhijun Chen , Yunpeng Yin , Limin Yang , Qingxing Xi , En Yang , Xuefeng Luo

Control Lyapunov Functions (CLFs) and Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) can be combined, typically by means of Quadratic Programs (QPs), to design controllers that achieve performance and safety objectives. However, a significant limitation…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-18 Hugo Matias , Daniel Silvestre

Collision avoidance for robotic manipulators requires enforcing full-body safety constraints in high-dimensional configuration spaces. Control Barrier Function (CBF) based safety filters have proven effective in enabling safe behaviors, but…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-24 Meg Wilkinson , Gilbert Bahati , Ryan M. Bena , Emily Fourney , Joel W. Burdick , Aaron D. Ames

In this paper, we propose a new class of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) that help avoid collisions with kinematic (non-zero velocity) obstacles. While the current forms of CBFs have been successful in…

Ensuring safe behavior is critical for modern autonomous cyber-physical systems. Control barrier functions (CBFs) are widely used to enforce safety in autonomous systems, yet their placement within networked control architectures remains…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-01 Severin Beger , Yuling Chen , Sandra Hirche

Safety-critical control is a crucial aspect of modern systems, and Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have gained popularity as the framework of choice for ensuring safety. However, implementing a CBF requires exact knowledge of the true…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-08-26 Rahal Nanayakkara , Aaron D. Ames , Paulo Tabuada

This paper presents a novel method for assistive load carrying using quadruped robots. The controller uses proprioceptive sensor data to estimate external base wrench, that is used for precise control of the robot's acceleration during…

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

Recent developments in autonomous driving and robotics underscore the necessity of safety-critical controllers. Control barrier functions (CBFs) are a popular method for appending safety guarantees to a general control framework, but they…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-05-21 Matthew Kim , William Sharpless , Hyun Joe Jeong , Sander Tonkens , Somil Bansal , Sylvia Herbert

Safety is one of the fundamental problems in robotics. Recently, a quadratic program-based control barrier function (CBF) method has emerged as a way to enforce safety-critical constraints. Together with control Lyapunov function (CLF), it…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-01-03 Jun Zeng , Bike Zhang , Zhongyu Li , Koushil Sreenath

Many robot manipulation tasks require the robot to make and break contact with objects and surfaces. The dynamics of such changing-contact robot manipulation tasks are discontinuous when contact is made or broken, and continuous elsewhere.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-06-22 Saif Sidhik , Mohan Sridharan , Dirk Ruiken

A fundamental and classical problem in mobile autonomous systems is maintaining the safety of autonomous agents during deployment. Prior literature has presented techniques using control barrier functions (CBFs) to achieve this goal. These…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-18 James Usevitch , Jackson Sahleen

This paper presents methodologies for constructing Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) for nonlinear, control-affine systems, in the presence of input constraints and bounded disturbances. More specifically, given a constraint function with…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-06-12 Joseph Breeden , Dimitra Panagou

Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-02-15 Dimuthu D. K. Arachchige , Isuru S. Godage