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Barrier functions (BFs) characterize safe sets of dynamical systems, where hard constraints are never violated as the system evolves over time. Computing a valid safe set and BF for a nonlinear (and potentially unmodeled), non-autonomous…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-26 Amy K. Strong , Ali Kashani , Claus Danielson , Leila Bridgeman

Ensuring operational safety is critical for human-to-humanoid motion imitation. This paper presents a vision-based framework that enables a humanoid robot to imitate human movements while avoiding collisions. Human skeletal keypoints are…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-14 Wenqi Cai , John Abanes , Nikolaos Evangeliou , Anthony Tzes

We present a novel technique for solving the problem of safe control for a general class of nonlinear, control-affine systems subject to parametric model uncertainty. Invoking Lyapunov analysis and the notion of fixed-time stability (FxTS),…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-11-26 Mitchell Black , Ehsan Arabi , Dimitra Panagou

Control barrier functions-based quadratic programming (CBF-QP) is gaining popularity as an effective controller synthesis tool for safe control. However, the provable safety is established on an accurate dynamic model and access to all…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-08-29 Jinfeng Chen , Zhiqiang Gao , Qin Lin

The optimal performance of robotic systems is usually achieved near the limit of state and input bounds. Model predictive control (MPC) is a prevalent strategy to handle these operational constraints, however, safety still remains an open…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-03-24 Jun Zeng , Bike Zhang , Koushil Sreenath

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.…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-05-17 Christos K. Verginis , Franck Djeumou , Ufuk Topcu

In this paper, we show that under mild controllability assumptions a time-invariant Control Barrier Function (CBF) can be constructed based on predictions with a finite horizon. As a starting point, we require only a known subset of a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-09-20 Adrian Wiltz , Xiao Tan , Dimos V. Dimarogonas

We study the problem of learning controllers for discrete-time non-linear stochastic dynamical systems with formal reach-avoid guarantees. This work presents the first method for providing formal reach-avoid guarantees, which combine and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-30 Đorđe Žikelić , Mathias Lechner , Thomas A. Henzinger , Krishnendu Chatterjee

This article introduces the Pareto Control Barrier Function (PCBF) algorithm to maximize the inner safe set of dynamical systems under input constraints. Traditional Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) ensure safety by maintaining system…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-21 Xiaoyang Cao , Zhe Fu , Alexandre M. Bayen

This work presents a unified approach for collision avoidance using Collision-Cone Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) in both ground (UGV) and aerial (UAV) unmanned vehicles. We propose a novel CBF formulation inspired by collision cones, to…

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 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

Adaptive control provides closed-loop stability and reference tracking for uncertain dynamical systems through online parameter adaptation. These properties alone, however, do not ensure safety in the sense of forward invariance of state…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-17 Johannes Autenrieb , Peter A. Fisher , Anuradha Annaswamy

Providing finite-time probabilistic safety and reach-avoid guarantees is crucial for safety-critical stochastic systems. Existing state-of-the-art barrier methods often rely on a restrictive boundedness assumption for auxiliary functions,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-05-12 Bai Xue , Luke Ong , Dominik Wagner , Peixin Wang

In this paper we propose a novel semi-definite programming approach that solves reach-avoid problems over open (i.e., not bounded a priori) time horizons for dynamical systems modeled by polynomial stochastic differential equations. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-12-22 Bai Xue , Naijun Zhan , Martin Fränzle

Time delays in feedback control loops can cause controllers to respond too late, and with excessively large corrective actions, leading to unsafe behavior (violation of state constraints) and controller infeasibility (violation of input…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-26 Adam K. Kiss , Ersin Das , Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames

Designing provably safe control is a core problem in trustworthy autonomy. However, most prior work in this regard assumes either that the system dynamics are known or deterministic, or that the state and action space are finite,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Xinhang Ma , Junlin Wu , Yiannis Kantaros , Yevgeniy Vorobeychik

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been demonstrated as an effective method for safety-critical control of autonomous systems. Although CBFs are simple to deploy, their design remains challenging, motivating the development of…

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

In this paper, we present a control synthesis framework for a general class of nonlinear, control-affine systems under spatiotemporal and input constraints. First, we study the problem of fixed-time convergence in the presence of input…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-04-27 Kunal Garg , Ehsan Arabi , Dimitra Panagou

This paper studies the problem of enforcing safety of a stochastic dynamical system over a finite-time horizon. We use stochastic control barrier functions as a means to quantify the probability that a system exits a given safe region of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2019-09-12 Cesar Santoyo , Maxence Dutreix , Samuel Coogan