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Safe real-time control of robotic manipulators in unstructured environments requires handling numerous safety constraints without compromising task performance. Traditional approaches, such as artificial potential fields (APFs), suffer from…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-10-21 Daniel Morton , Marco Pavone

In this paper, we propose a novel Control Barrier Function (CBF) based controller for nonlinear systems with complex, time-varying input constraints. To deal with these constraints, we introduce an auxiliary control input to transform the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-05-20 Yaosheng Deng , Yang Bai , Yujie Wang , Masaki Ogura , Mir Feroskhan

Hybrid dynamical systems are ubiquitous as practical robotic applications often involve both continuous states and discrete switchings. Safety is a primary concern for hybrid robotic systems. Existing safety-critical control approaches for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-12-02 Shuo Yang , Yu Chen , Xiang Yin , George J. Pappas , Rahul Mangharam

Control barrier functions (CBFs) offer an efficient framework for designing real-time safe controllers. However, CBF-based controllers can be short-sighted, resulting in poor performance, a behaviour which is aggravated in uncertain…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-09-16 Allan Andre do Nascimento , Antonis Papachristodoulou , Kostas Margellos

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

This paper addresses the problem of safety-critical control for non-affine control systems. It has been shown that optimizing quadratic costs subject to state and control constraints can be sub-optimally reduced to a sequence of quadratic…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-15 Wei Xiao , Ross Allen , Daniela Rus

Using control barrier functions (CBFs) as safety filters provides a computationally inexpensive yet effective method for constructing controllers in safety-critical applications. However, using CBFs requires the construction of a valid CBF,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-02-15 Bolun Dai , Prashanth Krishnamurthy , Farshad Khorrami

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

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

Inspired by the success of imitation and inverse reinforcement learning in replicating expert behavior through optimal control, we propose a learning based approach to safe controller synthesis based on control barrier functions (CBFs). We…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-11-10 Alexander Robey , Haimin Hu , Lars Lindemann , Hanwen Zhang , Dimos V. Dimarogonas , Stephen Tu , Nikolai Matni

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…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-17 Nikolaos Bousias , Charalampia Stamouli , Anastasios Tsiamis , George Pappas

Learning-based control with safety guarantees usually requires real-time safety certification and modifications of possibly unsafe learning-based policies. The control barrier function (CBF) method uses a safety filter containing a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-10-25 Kanghui He , Shengling Shi , Ton van den Boom , Bart De Schutter

Control barrier function (CBF)-based methods provide the minimum modification necessary to formally guarantee safety in the context of quadratic programming, and strict safety guarantee for safety critical systems. However, most CBF-related…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-27 Xiaoxiao Li , Zhirui Sun , Hongpeng Wang , Shuai Li , Jiankun Wang

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

Input delays affect systems such as teleoperation and wirelessly autonomous connected vehicles, and may lead to safety violations. One promising way to ensure safety in the presence of delay is to employ control barrier functions (CBFs),…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-20 Yitaek Kim , Ersin Das , Jeeseop Kim , Aaron D. Ames , Joel W. Burdick , Christoffer Sloth

Safety-critical control is a crucial aspect of modern systems, and Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have gained popularity as the framework of choice for ensuring safety. However, implementing a CBF requires exact knowledge of the true…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-08-26 Rahal Nanayakkara , Aaron D. Ames , Paulo Tabuada

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

This paper presents a framework for designing provably safe feedback controllers for sampled-data control affine systems with measurement and actuation uncertainties. Based on the interval Taylor model of nonlinear functions, a sampled-data…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-13 Yuhao Zhang , Sequoyah Walters , Xiangru Xu

Construction automation increasingly requires autonomous mobile robots, yet robust autonomy remains challenging on construction sites. These environments are dynamic and often visually occluded, which complicates perception and navigation.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-16 Johannes Mootz , Reza Akhavian

The safety-critical nature of adaptive cruise control (ACC) systems calls for systematic design procedures, e.g., based on formal methods or control barrier functions (CBFs), to provide strong guarantees of safety and performance under all…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-03-29 Muhammad Waqas , Muhammad Ali Murtaza , Pierluigi Nuzzo , Petros Ioannou