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Related papers: Optimal Control Barrier Functions: Maximizing the …

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A flexible active safety motion (FASM) control approach is proposed for the avoidance of dynamic obstacles and the reference tracking in robot manipulators. The distinctive feature of the proposed method lies in its utilization of control…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-05-22 Jinhao Liu , Jun Yang , Jianliang Mao , Tianqi Zhu , Qihang Xie , Yimeng Li , Xiangyu Wang , Shihua Li

Ensuring both performance and safety is critical for autonomous systems operating in real-world environments. While safety filters such as Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) enforce constraints by modifying nominal controllers in real time,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-07-21 Aditya Singh , Aastha Mishra , Manan Tayal , Shishir Kolathaya , Pushpak Jagtap

This paper presents a safety-critical approach to the coordinated control of cooperative robots locomoting in the presence of fixed (holonomic) constraints. To this end, we leverage control barrier functions (CBFs) to ensure the safe…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-12-15 Jeeseop Kim , Jaemin Lee , Aaron D. Ames

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for safety-critical controller design for nonlinear systems. Existing design paradigms do not address the gap between theory (controller design with continuous…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-06-15 Andrew J. Taylor , Victor D. Dorobantu , Ryan K. Cosner , Yisong Yue , Aaron D. Ames

Over the decades, kinematic controllers have proven to be practically useful for applications like set-point and trajectory tracking in robotic systems. To this end, we formulate a novel safety-critical paradigm for kinematic control in…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-09-22 Andrew Singletary , Shishir Kolathaya , Aaron D. Ames

This paper tackles the problem of safe and efficient area coverage using a multi-agent system operating in environments with obstacles. Applications such as environmental monitoring and search and rescue require robot swarms to cover large…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-12 Sungjun Seo , Kooktae Lee

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

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are a powerful tool for ensuring the safety of autonomous systems, yet applying them to nonholonomic robots in cluttered, dynamic environments remains an open challenge. State-of-the-art methods often rely…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Hun Kuk Park , Taekyung Kim , Dimitra Panagou

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…

Incorporating both flexible and rigid components in robot designs offers a unique solution to the limitations of traditional rigid robotics by enabling both compliance and strength. This paper explores the challenges and solutions for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-03-28 Zach J. Patterson , Wei Xiao , Emily Sologuren , Daniela Rus

This paper develops a controller for Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) traversing a single-lane roundabout. The controller simultaneously determines the optimal sequence and associated optimal motion control jointly minimizing travel…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-03-21 Yingqing Chen , Christos G. Cassandras , Kaiyuan Xu

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are a practical approach for designing safety-critical controllers, but constructing them for arbitrary nonlinear dynamical systems remains a challenge. Recent efforts have explored learning-based methods,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-05-20 Manan Tayal , Aditya Singh , Pushpak Jagtap , Shishir Kolathaya

In this paper, a safety-critical control strategy for a nonholonomic robot is developed to generate control signals that result in optimal, obstacle-free paths through dynamic environments. We formulate the control synthesis problem as an…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-03-04 Nhat Nguyen Minh , Stephen McIlvanna , Yuzhu Sun , Yan Jin , Mien Van

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

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

Fixed-wing UAVs have transformed the transportation system with their high flight speed and long endurance, yet their safe operation in increasingly cluttered environments depends heavily on effective collision avoidance techniques. This…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-07-30 Aryan Agarwal , Ravi Agrawal , Manan Tayal , Pushpak Jagtap , Shishir Kolathaya

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have become a popular tool to enforce safety of a control system. CBFs are commonly utilized in a quadratic program formulation (CBF-QP) as safety-critical constraints. A class $\mathcal{K}$ function in CBFs…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-04-12 Hengbo Ma , Bike Zhang , Masayoshi Tomizuka , Koushil Sreenath

This paper studies the efficient implementation of safety filters that are designed using control barrier functions (CBFs), which minimally modify a nominal controller to render it safe with respect to a prescribed set of states. Although…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-23 Pol Mestres , Shima Sadat Mousavi , Pio Ong , Lizhi Yang , Ersin Das , Joel W. Burdick , Aaron D. Ames

In the context of safety-critical control, we propose and analyse the use of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to limit the kinetic energy of torque-controlled robots. The proposed scheme is able to modify a nominal control action in a…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-11-05 Federico Califano , Daniel Logmans , Wesley Roozing

Safety constraints of nonlinear control systems are commonly enforced through the use of control barrier functions (CBFs). Uncertainties in the dynamic model can disrupt forward invariance guarantees or cause the state to be restricted to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-01-30 Hannah M. Sweatland , Omkar Sudhir Patil , Warren E. Dixon