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Breaking safety constraints in control systems can lead to potential risks, resulting in unexpected costs or catastrophic damage. Nevertheless, uncertainty is ubiquitous, even among similar tasks. In this paper, we develop a novel adaptive…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-07-17 Shengbo Wang , Ke Li , Yin Yang , Yuting Cao , Tingwen Huang , Shiping Wen

Reinforcement Learning (RL) uses rewards to guide learning, yet reward design is typically hand-crafted using heuristics that can be difficult to tune. We propose a Control Barrier Function (CBF)-informed reward design for Multi-Agent RL…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Jianye Xu , Bassam Alrifaee

Many robotic tasks require high-dimensional sensors such as cameras and Lidar to navigate complex environments, but developing certifiably safe feedback controllers around these sensors remains a challenging open problem, particularly when…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-01-05 Charles Dawson , Bethany Lowenkamp , Dylan Goff , Chuchu Fan

Demonstration-guided reinforcement learning (RL) is a promising approach for learning complex behaviors by leveraging both reward feedback and a set of target task demonstrations. Prior approaches for demonstration-guided RL treat every new…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-22 Karl Pertsch , Youngwoon Lee , Yue Wu , Joseph J. Lim

Bipedal humanoid robots must precisely coordinate balance, timing, and contact decisions when locomoting on constrained footholds such as stepping stones, beams, and planks -- even minor errors can lead to catastrophic failure. Classical…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-01-13 Min Dai , William D. Compton , Junheng Li , Lizhi Yang , Aaron D. Ames

We propose a novel cooperative herding strategy through backstepping control barrier functions (CBFs), which coordinates multiple herders to herd a group of evaders safely towards a designated goal region. For the herding system with…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2025-07-15 Kang Li , Ming Li , Wenkang Ji , Zhiyong Sun , Shiyu Zhao

Safety is a fundamental requirement of control systems. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are proposed to ensure the safety of the control system by constructing safety filters or synthesizing control inputs. However, the safety guarantee…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-03-29 Manan Tayal , Hongchao Zhang , Pushpak Jagtap , Andrew Clark , Shishir Kolathaya

Legged robots have enormous potential in their range of capabilities, from navigating unstructured terrains to high-speed running. However, designing robust controllers for highly agile dynamic motions remains a substantial challenge for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-04-20 Laura Smith , J. Chase Kew , Tianyu Li , Linda Luu , Xue Bin Peng , Sehoon Ha , Jie Tan , Sergey Levine

Modern nonlinear control theory seeks to endow systems with properties of stability and safety, and have been deployed successfully in multiple domains. Despite this success, model uncertainty remains a significant challenge in synthesizing…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2019-12-24 Andrew Taylor , Andrew Singletary , Yisong Yue , Aaron Ames

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms face significant challenges when dealing with long-horizon robot manipulation tasks in real-world environments due to sample inefficiency and safety issues. To overcome these challenges, we propose a…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-08-03 Ayano Hiranaka , Minjune Hwang , Sharon Lee , Chen Wang , Li Fei-Fei , Jiajun Wu , Ruohan Zhang

As reinforcement learning for humanoid robots evolves from single-task to multi-skill paradigms, efficiently expanding new skills while avoiding catastrophic forgetting has become a key challenge in embodied intelligence. Existing…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-15 Yifei Yan , Linqi Ye

The problem of safely learning and controlling a dynamical system - i.e., of stabilizing an originally (partially) unknown system while ensuring that it does not leave a prescribed 'safe set' - has recently received tremendous attention in…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-10-10 Jafar Abbaszadeh Chekan , Cedric Langbort

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 work addresses the challenge of safe and efficient mobile robot navigation in complex dynamic environments with concave moving obstacles. Reactive safe controllers like Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) design obstacle avoidance…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Yifan Xue , Ze Zhang , Knut Åkesson , Nadia Figueroa

This paper presents a reactive planning system that allows a Cassie-series bipedal robot to avoid multiple non-overlapping obstacles via a single, continuously differentiable control barrier function (CBF). The overall system detects an…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-06-27 Jinze Liu , Minzhe Li , Jiunn-Kai Huang , Jessy W. Grizzle

Modern autonomous systems, such as flying, legged, and wheeled robots, are generally characterized by high-dimensional nonlinear dynamics, which presents challenges for model-based safety-critical control design. Motivated by the success of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-21 Max H. Cohen , Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames

Control of wheeled humanoid locomotion is a challenging problem due to the nonlinear dynamics and under-actuated characteristics of these robots. Traditionally, feedback controllers have been utilized for stabilization and locomotion.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-04-08 Donghoon Baek , Amartya Purushottam , Joao Ramos

Humanoid robotics presents significant challenges in artificial intelligence, requiring precise coordination and control of high-degree-of-freedom systems. Designing effective reward functions for deep reinforcement learning (DRL) in this…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-02-13 Zhenwei Wu , Jinxiong Lu , Yuxiao Chen , Yunxin Liu , Yueting Zhuang , Luhui Hu

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has shown promise in various robotics applications, yet its deployment on real systems is still limited due to safety and operational constraints. The safe RL field has gained considerable attention in recent…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-19 Sadık Bera Yüksel , Ali Tevfik Buyukkocak , Derya Aksaray

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) have recently gained prominence in traffic research due to advances in communication technology and autonomous driving. Various longitudinal control strategies for CAVs have been developed to enhance…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-06-25 Jingyuan Zhou , Longhao Yan , Kaidi Yang