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Related papers: Safe Probabilistic Planning for Human-Robot Intera…

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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

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 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

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-16 Brooks A. Butler , Philip E. Paré

Sampling-based algorithms, such as Rapidly Exploring Random Trees (RRT) and its variants, have been used extensively for motion planning. Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been recently proposed to synthesize controllers for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-06-03 Ahmad Ahmad , Calin Belta , Roberto Tron

Autonomous robots navigating in changing environments demand adaptive navigation strategies for safe long-term operation. While many modern control paradigms offer theoretical guarantees, they often assume known extrinsic safety…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-04-24 Jingxing Qian , Siqi Zhou , Nicholas Jianrui Ren , Veronica Chatrath , Angela P. Schoellig

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are an effective methodology to ensure safety and performative efficacy in real-time control applications such as power systems, resource allocation, autonomous vehicles, robotics, etc. This approach ensures…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-30 Samy Wu Fung , Levon Nurbekyan

A combination of control Lyapunov functions (CLFs) and control barrier functions (CBFs) forms an efficient framework for addressing control challenges in safe stabilization. In our previous research, we developed an analytical control…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-12-06 Ming Li , Zhiyong Sun

Safety is one of the fundamental problems in robotics. Recently, one-step or multi-step optimal control problems for discrete-time nonlinear dynamical system were formulated to offer tracking stability using control Lyapunov functions…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-10-04 Jun Zeng , Zhongyu Li , Koushil Sreenath

In order to safely operate around humans, robots can employ predictive models of human motion. Unfortunately, these models cannot capture the full complexity of human behavior and necessarily introduce simplifying assumptions. As a result,…

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have recently introduced a systematic tool to ensure system safety by establishing set invariance. When combined with a nominal control strategy, they form a safety-critical control mechanism. However, the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-04-22 Mohammad Aali , Jun Liu

Collision avoidance in heterogeneous fleets of uncrewed vessels is challenging because the decision-making processes and controllers often differ between platforms, and it is further complicated by the limitations on sharing trajectories…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-01-19 Tyler Paine , Brendan Long , Jeremy Wenger , Michael DeFilippo , James Usevitch , Michael Benjamin

Recent Foundation Model-enabled robotics (FMRs) display greatly improved general-purpose skills, enabling more adaptable automation than conventional robotics. Their ability to handle diverse tasks thus creates new opportunities to replace…

Control Barrier Function (CBF) is an emerging method that guarantees safety in path planning problems by generating a control command to ensure the forward invariance of a safety set. Most of the developments up to date assume availability…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-07-02 Chuyuan Tao , Wenbin Wan , Junjie Gao , Bihao Mo , Hunmin Kim , Naira Hovakimyan

This letter addresses the constraint compatibility problem of control barrier functions (CBFs), which occurs when a safety-critical CBF requires a system to apply more control effort than it is capable of generating. This inevitably leads…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-28 Logan E. Beaver

Robust motion planning is a well-studied problem in the robotics literature, yet current algorithms struggle to operate scalably and safely in the presence of other moving agents, such as humans. This paper introduces a novel framework for…

Connected automated vehicles have shown great potential to improve the efficiency of transportation systems in terms of passenger comfort, fuel economy, stability of driving behavior and mitigation of traffic congestions. Yet, to deploy…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-09-04 Tamas G. Molnar , Gabor Orosz , Aaron D. Ames

In the field of control engineering, the connection between Signal Temporal Logic (STL) and time-varying Control Barrier Functions (CBF) has attracted considerable attention. CBFs have demonstrated notable success in ensuring the safety of…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-04-02 Andrea Ruo , Lorenzo Sabattini , Valeria Villani

Safe control in unknown environments is a significant challenge in robotics. While Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are widely used to guarantee system safety, they often assume known environments with predefined obstacles. The proposed…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-09-16 Golnaz Raja , Teemu Mökkönen , Reza Ghabcheloo

A trust-aware safe control system for autonomous navigation in the presence of humans, specifically pedestrians, is presented. The system combines model predictive control (MPC) with control barrier functions (CBFs) and trust estimation to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-11-01 Saad Ejaz , Masaki Inoue