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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

Learning-based controllers, such as neural network (NN) controllers, can show high empirical performance but lack formal safety guarantees. To address this issue, control barrier functions (CBFs) have been applied as a safety filter to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-01-10 Shuo Yang , Shaoru Chen , Victor M. Preciado , Rahul Mangharam

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

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

We present a closed-form optimal feedback control method that ensures safety in an a prior unknown and potentially dynamic environment. This article considers the scenario where local perception data (e.g., LiDAR) is obtained periodically,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-04-23 Amirsaeid Safari , Jesse B. Hoagg

We present a dual-barrier control barrier function (CBF) safety filter for real-time, safety-critical velocity control of holonomic robots operating in incrementally built occupancy grid maps. As a robot explores an unknown environment,…

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have emerged as an effective and non-invasive safety filter for ensuring the safety of autonomous systems in dynamic environments with formal guarantees. However, most existing works on CBF synthesis focus…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Yuepeng Zhang , Yu Chen , Yuda Li , Shaoyuan Li , Xiang Yin

Safety filters leveraging control barrier functions (CBFs) are highly effective for enforcing safe behavior on complex systems. It is often easier to synthesize CBFs for a Reduced order Model (RoM), and track the resulting safe behavior on…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-12-09 William D. Compton , Max H. Cohen , 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

Safe navigation in unknown and cluttered environments remains a challenging problem in robotics. Model Predictive Contour Control (MPCC) has shown promise for performant obstacle avoidance by enabling precise and agile trajectory tracking,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-07-22 Nicholas Mohammad , Nicola Bezzo

This tutorial provides a critical review of the practical application of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) in robotic safety. While the theoretical foundations of CBFs are well-established, I identify a recurring gap between the mathematical…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Taekyung Kim

Ensuring safe exploration in high-dimensional systems with unknown dynamics remains a significant challenge. Existing safe reinforcement learning methods often provide safety guarantees only in expectation, which can still lead to safety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Rahul Narava , Siddharth Verma , Ojas Jain , Shashi Shekhar Jha , Mayank Shekhar Jha

Safely navigating around obstacles while respecting the dynamics, control, and geometry of the underlying system is a key challenge in robotics. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) generate safe control policies by considering system dynamics…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-09-16 Yi-Hsuan Chen , Shuo Liu , Wei Xiao , Calin Belta , Michael Otte

Control Barrier Functions (CBF) are widely used to enforce the safety-critical constraints on nonlinear systems. Recently, these functions are being incorporated into a path planning framework to design safety-critical path planners.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-10-25 Aniketh Manjunath , Quan Nguyen

Reinforcement learning (RL), while powerful and expressive, can often prioritize performance at the expense of safety. Yet safety violations can lead to catastrophic outcomes in real-world deployments. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) offer…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-19 Lizhi Yang , Blake Werner , Massimiliano de Sa , Aaron D. Ames

Robots deployed in unstructured, real-world environments operate under considerable uncertainty due to imperfect state estimates, model error, and disturbances. Given this real-world context, the goal of this paper is to develop controllers…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-02-27 Ryan K. Cosner , Preston Culbertson , Andrew J. Taylor , Aaron D. Ames

We present a real-time safety filter for motion planning, including those that are learning-based, using Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to provide formal guarantees for collision avoidance with road boundaries. A key feature of our…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-25 Jianye Xu , Chang Che , Bassam Alrifaee

This paper proposes a safety controller for control-affine nonlinear systems with unmodelled dynamics and disturbances to improve closed-loop robustness. Uncertainty estimation-based control barrier functions (CBFs) are utilized to ensure…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-15 Ersin Daş , Skylar X. Wei , Joel W. Burdick

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

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