Related papers: Compositional Construction of Barrier Functions fo…
For a broad class of nonlinear systems, we formulate the problem of guaranteeing safety with optimality under constraints. Specifically, we define controlled safety for differential inclusions with constraints on the states and the inputs.…
As modern systems become ever more connected with complex dynamic coupling relationships, developing safe control methods becomes paramount. In this paper, we discuss the relationship of node-level safety definitions for individual agents…
This work explores the nature of augmented importance sampling in safety-constrained model predictive control problems. When operating in a constrained environment, sampling based model predictive control and motion planning typically…
This paper addresses a structural design problem in control systems, and explicitly takes into consideration the possible application to large-scale systems. More precisely, we aim to determine and characterize the minimum number of…
We consider here systems with piecewise linear dynamics that are periodically sampled with a given period {\tau} . At each sampling time, the mode of the system, i.e., the parameters of the linear dynamics, can be switched, according to a…
Symbolic models have recently spurred the interest of the research community because they offer a correct-by-design approach to the control of embedded and cyber-physical systems. In this paper we address construction of symbolic models for…
Safety-critical applications require controllers/policies that can guarantee safety with high confidence. The control barrier function is a useful tool to guarantee safety if we have access to the ground-truth system dynamics. In practice,…
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,…
We propose a novel design paradigm for multistate machines where transitions from one state to another are organized by bifurcations of multiple equilibria of the energy landscape describing the collective interactions of the machine…
Applications that require multi-robot systems to operate independently for extended periods of time in unknown or unstructured environments face a broad set of challenges, such as hardware degradation, changing weather patterns, or…
Endowing nonlinear systems with safe behavior is increasingly important in modern control. This task is particularly challenging for real-life control systems that must operate safely in dynamically changing environments. This paper…
This paper studies set invariance and contractivity in hybrid systems modeled by hybrid inclusions using barrier functions. After introducing the notion of a multiple barrier functions, we investigate the tightest possible sufficient…
Given a countable set of sites and a collection of flip rates at each site, we give a sufficient condition on the long-range dependancies of the flip rates ensuring the well-definedness of the corresponding spin system. This hypothesis has…
Barrier functions (also called certificates) have been an important tool for the verification of hybrid systems, and have also played important roles in optimization and multi-objective control. The extension of a barrier function to a…
Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide a powerful tool for enforcing safety constraints in control systems, but their direct application to complex, high-dimensional dynamics is often challenging. In many settings, safety certificates are…
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…
Engineering molecular systems that exhibit complex behavior requires the design of kinetic barriers. For example, an effective catalytic pathway must have a large barrier when the catalyst is absent. While programming such energy barriers…
To ensure that a robot is able to accomplish an extensive range of tasks, it is necessary to achieve a flexible combination of multiple behaviors. This is because the design of task motions suited to each situation would become increasingly…
Control barrier functions enforce safety by guaranteeing forward invariance of an admissible set. Under standard (non-strict) barrier conditions, however, forward invariance alone does not prevent trajectories from remaining on the boundary…
We develop a control algorithm that ensures the safety, in terms of confinement in a set, of a system with unknown, 2nd-order nonlinear dynamics. The algorithm establishes novel connections between data-driven and robust, nonlinear control.…