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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

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

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for safety-critical controller design for nonlinear systems. Existing design paradigms do not address the gap between theory (controller design with continuous…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-06-15 Andrew J. Taylor , Victor D. Dorobantu , Ryan K. Cosner , Yisong Yue , Aaron D. Ames

This paper addresses the challenge of ensuring safety in stochastic control systems with high-relative-degree constraints, while maintaining feasibility and mitigating conservatism in risk evaluation. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-08 Shuo Liu , Calin A. Belta

Guaranteeing the safety of controllers is vital for real-world applications, but is markedly difficult when the states are not perfectly known and when the control inputs are bounded. Backup control barrier functions (bCBFs) use predictions…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-23 David E. J. van Wijk , Tamas G. Molnar , Samuel Coogan , Manoranjan Majji , Aaron D. Ames , Joel W. Burdick

Safe control with guarantees generally requires the system model to be known. It is far more challenging to handle systems with uncertain parameters. In this paper, we propose a generic algorithm that can synthesize and verify safe…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-12 Simin Liu , Kai S. Yun , John M. Dolan , Changliu Liu

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have become a popular tool to enforce safety of a control system. CBFs are commonly utilized in a quadratic program formulation (CBF-QP) as safety-critical constraints. A class $\mathcal{K}$ function in CBFs…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-04-12 Hengbo Ma , Bike Zhang , Masayoshi Tomizuka , Koushil Sreenath

This paper presents a safe controller synthesis of discrete-time stochastic systems using Control Barrier Functions (CBFs). The proposed condition allows the design of a safe controller synthesis that ensures system safety while avoiding…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-01-17 Sotaro Fushimi , Kenta Hoshino , Yuki Nishimura

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are utilized to ensure the safety of control systems. CBFs act as safety filters in order to provide safety guarantees without compromising system performance. These safety guarantees rely on the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-06-30 Hongchao Zhang , Manan Tayal , Jackson Cox , Pushpak Jagtap , Shishir Kolathaya , Andrew Clark

This paper presents a novel approach for synthesizing control barrier functions (CBFs) from high relative degree safety constraints: Rectified CBFs (ReCBFs). We begin by discussing the limitations of existing High-Order CBF approaches and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-01-06 Pio Ong , Max H. Cohen , Tamas G. Molnar , Aaron D. Ames

In a complex real-time operating environment, external disturbances and uncertainties adversely affect the safety, stability, and performance of dynamical systems. This paper presents a robust stabilizing safety-critical controller…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-04-29 Ersin Daş , Richard M. Murray

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

Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide a rigorous framework for designing controllers enforcing safety constraints. While CBF theory is well-developed for a finite number of safety constraints, certain applications, e.g., backup CBFs,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-20 Max H. Cohen , Pio Ong , Pol Mestres , Aaron D. Ames

We present a real-time safety filter for motion planning, including those that are learning-based, using Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to provide formal guarantees for collision avoidance with road boundaries. A key feature of our…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-25 Jianye Xu , Chang Che , Bassam Alrifaee

We present a closed-form optimal control that satisfies both safety constraints (i.e., state constraints) and input constraints (e.g., actuator limits) using a composition of multiple control barrier functions (CBFs). This main contribution…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-07-08 Pedram Rabiee , Jesse B. Hoagg

We develop an optimization-free framework for safe stabilization of single-input control-affine nonlinear systems with a given control Lyapunov function (CLF) and a given control barrier function (CBF), where the desired equilibrium lies in…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-25 Bo Wang , Miroslav Krstic

Ensuring the safety of control systems often requires the satisfaction of constraints on states (such as position or velocity), control inputs (such as force), and a mixture of states and inputs (such as power that depends on both velocity…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-19 Laszlo Gacsi , Adam K. Kiss , Ersin Das , Tamas G. Molnar

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have been widely applied to safety-critical robotic applications. However, the construction of control barrier functions for robotic systems remains a challenging task. Recently, collision detection using…

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

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