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In the field of safe reinforcement learning (RL), finding a balance between satisfying safety constraints and optimizing reward performance presents a significant challenge. A key obstacle in this endeavor is the estimation of safety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-14 Zhepeng Cen , Yihang Yao , Zuxin Liu , Ding Zhao

The control barrier function (CBF) has become a fundamental tool in safety-critical systems design since its invention. Typically, the quadratic optimization framework is employed to accommodate CBFs, control Lyapunov functions (CLFs),…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-17 Junjun Xie , Liang Hu , Jiahu Qin , Jun Yang , Huijun Gao

It is quite challenging to ensure the safety of reinforcement learning (RL) agents in an unknown and stochastic environment under hard constraints that require the system state not to reach certain specified unsafe regions. Many popular…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-06-14 Yixuan Wang , Simon Sinong Zhan , Ruochen Jiao , Zhilu Wang , Wanxin Jin , Zhuoran Yang , Zhaoran Wang , Chao Huang , Qi Zhu

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms have recently made significant strides in improving network performance. Nonetheless, their practical use is still limited in the absence of safe exploration and safe decision-making. In the…

Networking and Internet Architecture · Computer Science 2024-01-12 Lam Dinh , Pham Tran Anh Quang , Jérémie Leguay

Optimal control problems with constraints ensuring safety and convergence to desired states can be mapped onto a sequence of real time optimization problems through the use of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) and Control Lyapunov Functions…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2019-12-10 Wei Xiao , Calin A. Belta , Christos G. Cassandras

Control barrier functions (CBF) have become popular as a safety filter to guarantee the safety of nonlinear dynamical systems for arbitrary inputs. However, it is difficult to construct functions that satisfy the CBF constraints for high…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-12-06 Oswin So , Zachary Serlin , Makai Mann , Jake Gonzales , Kwesi Rutledge , Nicholas Roy , Chuchu Fan

Safety in reinforcement learning (RL) is a key property in both training and execution in many domains such as autonomous driving or finance. In this paper, we formalize it with a constrained RL formulation in the distributional RL setting.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-01 Jianyi Zhang , Paul Weng

Safety is a fundamental requirement for autonomous systems operating in critical domains. Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been used to design safety filters that minimally alter nominal controls for such systems to maintain their…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-27 Yuxuan Yang , Hussein Sibai

This paper presents a new approach for guaranteed safety subject to input constraints (e.g., actuator limits) using a composition of multiple control barrier functions (CBFs). First, we present a method for constructing a single CBF from…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-10 Pedram Rabiee , Jesse B. Hoagg

Reinforcement learning (RL) has demonstrated impressive performance in various areas such as video games and robotics. However, ensuring safety and stability, which are two critical properties from a control perspective, remains a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-10-02 Liqun Zhao , Konstantinos Gatsis , Antonis Papachristodoulou

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

Designing safety-critical control for robotic manipulators is challenging, especially in a cluttered environment. First, the actual trajectory of a manipulator might deviate from the planned one due to the complex collision environments and…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-11-14 Xuda Ding , Han Wang , Yi Ren , Yu Zheng , Cailian Chen , Jianping He

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been widely applied to many control tasks and substantially improved the performances compared to conventional control methods in many domains where the reward function is well defined. However, for many…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-22 Baohe Zhang , Yuan Zhang , Lilli Frison , Thomas Brox , Joschka Bödecker

Safe navigation of autonomous robots remains one of the core challenges in the field, especially in dynamic and uncertain environments. One of the prevalent approaches is safety filtering based on control barrier functions (CBFs), which are…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-10 Bojan Derajić , Sebastian Bernhard , Wolfgang Hönig

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 study presents a novel methodology incorporating safety constraints into a robotic simulation during the training of deep reinforcement learning (DRL). The framework integrates specific parts of the safety requirements, such as…

This tutorial paper presents recent work of the authors that extends the theory of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to address practical challenges in the synthesis of safe controllers for autonomous systems and robots. We present novel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-12-29 Kunal Garg , James Usevitch , Joseph Breeden , Mitchell Black , Devansh Agrawal , Hardik Parwana , Dimitra Panagou

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have become powerful tools for ensuring safety in nonlinear systems. However, finding valid CBFs that guarantee persistent safety and feasibility remains an open challenge, especially in systems with input…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-03-05 Taekyung Kim , Robin Inho Kee , Dimitra Panagou

Spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) pose safety risks to high-value assets, so formal safety guarantees are critical. Yet conservative safety controllers can reduce mission efficiency. We propose a unified two-stage…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-03 Minduli Wijayatunga , Nathan Wallace , Salah Sukkarieh , Roberto Armellin

Ensuring safety in dynamic multi-agent systems is challenging due to limited information about the other agents. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are showing promise for safety assurance but current methods make strong assumptions about…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-10-05 Luigi Berducci , Shuo Yang , Rahul Mangharam , Radu Grosu