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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

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

The increasing complexity of modern robotic systems and the environments they operate in necessitates the formal consideration of safety in the presence of imperfect measurements. In this paper we propose a rigorous framework for…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-04-30 Ryan K. Cosner , Andrew W. Singletary , Andrew J. Taylor , Tamas G. Molnar , Katherine L. Bouman , Aaron D. Ames

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

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

We address the problem of optimizing the performance of a dynamic system while satisfying hard safety constraints at all times. Implementing an optimal control solution is limited by the computational cost required to derive it in real…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-08-19 Wei Xiao , Christos G. Cassandras , Calin A. Belta

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

In emerging control applications involving multiple and complex tasks, safety filters are gaining prominence as a modular approach to enforcing safety constraints. Among various methods, control barrier functions (CBFs) are widely used for…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-08-12 Jason J. Choi , Claire J. Tomlin , Shankar Sastry , Koushil Sreenath

This paper focuses on safety critical control with sector-bounded uncertainties at the plant input. The uncertainties can represent nonlinear and/or time-varying components. We propose a new robust control barrier function (RCBF) approach…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-07 Jyot Buch , Shih-Chi Liao , Peter Seiler

Optimal control for safety-critical systems is often dependent on the conservativeness of constraints. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) serve as a medium to represent such constraints, but constructing a minimally conservative CBF is a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-05-08 Tanmay Dokania , Yashwanth Kumar Nakka

Safety-critical whole-body robot control demands reactive methods that ensure collision avoidance in real-time. Complementarity constraints and control barrier functions (CBF) have emerged as core tools for ensuring such safety constraints,…

This paper investigates the problem of composing multiple control barrier functions (CBFs) -- and matrix control barrier functions (MCBFs) -- through logical and combinatorial operations. Standard CBF formulations naturally enable…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-22 Pio Ong , Haejoon Lee , Tamas G. Molnar , Dimitra Panagou , Aaron D. Ames

Control barrier functions (CBFs) offer a powerful tool for enforcing safety specifications in control synthesis. This paper deals with the problem of constructing valid CBFs. Given a second-order system and any desired safety set with…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-03-17 Mohammed Alyaseen , Nikolay Atanasov , Jorge Cortes

Enforcing multiple constraints based on the concept of control barrier functions (CBFs) is a remaining challenge because each of the CBFs requires a condition on the control inputs to be satisfied which may easily lead to infeasibility…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-26 Mark Spiller , Emilia Isbono , Philipp Schitz

We consider the problem of safely coordinating ensembles of identical autonomous agents to conduct complex missions with conflicting safety requirements and under noisy control inputs. Using non-smooth control barrier functions (CBFs) and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-03-29 Clinton Enwerem , John S. Baras

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) provide a powerful framework for ensuring safety in dynamical systems. However, their application typically relies on full state information, which is often violated in real-world due to the availability of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-05-19 Vaishnavi Jagabathula , Ahan Basu , Pushpak Jagtap

We propose a unified framework to fast generate a safe optimal control action for a new task from existing controllers on Multi-Agent Systems (MASs). The control action composition is achieved by taking a weighted mixture of the existing…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-09-22 Lin Song , Neng Wan , Aditya Gahlawat , Chuyuan Tao , Naira Hovakimyan , Evangelos A. Theodorou

A predictive control barrier function (PCBF) based safety filter is a modular framework to verify safety of a control input by predicting a future trajectory. The approach relies on the solution of two optimization problems, first computing…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-07-25 Alexandre Didier , Robin C. Jacobs , Jerome Sieber , Kim P. Wabersich , Melanie N. Zeilinger

This paper introduces a novel safety-critical control method through the synthesis of control barrier functions (CBFs) for systems with high-relative-degree safety constraints. By extending the procedure of CBF backstepping, we propose…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2025-08-29 Laszlo Gacsi , Max H. Cohen , Tamas G. Molnar

Reinforcement learning (RL) can improve control performance by seeking to learn optimal control policies in the end-use environment for vehicles and other systems. To accomplish this, RL algorithms need to sufficiently explore the state and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-05-21 Habtamu Hailemichael , Beshah Ayalew , Andrej Ivanco