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Control barrier functions (CBFs) provide an effective framework for enforcing safety in dynamical systems with scalar constraints. However, many safety constraints are more naturally expressed as matrix-valued conditions, such as positive…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-07 Samuel G. Gessow , Pio Ong , Aaron D. Ames , Brett T. Lopez

Robust control barrier functions (CBFs) provide a principled mechanism for smooth safety enforcement under worst-case disturbances. However, existing approaches typically rely on explicit, closed-form structure in the dynamics (e.g.,…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-16 Donggeon David Oh , Duy P. Nguyen , Haimin Hu , Jaime Fernández Fisac

Balancing safety and performance is one of the predominant challenges in modern control system design. Moreover, it is crucial to robustly ensure safety without inducing unnecessary conservativeness that degrades performance. In this work…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-01-02 Anil Alan , Andrew J. Taylor , Chaozhe R. He , Aaron D. Ames , Gabor Orosz

We study the problem of co-designing control barrier functions (CBF) and linear state feedback controllers for continuous-time linear systems. We achieve this by means of a single semi-definite optimization program. Our formulation can…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-19 Han Wang , Kostas Margellos , Antonis Papachristodoulou , Claudio De Persis

This paper considers safe control synthesis for dynamical systems with either probabilistic or worst-case uncertainty in both the dynamics model and the safety constraints. We formulate novel probabilistic and robust (worst-case) control…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-10-04 Kehan Long , Vikas Dhiman , Melvin Leok , Jorge Cortés , Nikolay Atanasov

Feedback optimization refers to a class of methods that steer a control system to a steady state that solves an optimization problem. Despite tremendous progress on the topic, an important problem remains open: enforcing state constraints…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-11 Giannis Delimpaltadakis , Pol Mestres , Jorge Cortés , W. P. M. H. Heemels

Learning controllers merely based on a performance metric has been proven effective in many physical and non-physical tasks in both control theory and reinforcement learning. However, in practice, the controller must guarantee some notion…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-11-24 Arash Mehrjou , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Bernhard Schölkopf

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

While learning-based control techniques often outperform classical controller designs, safety requirements limit the acceptance of such methods in many applications. Recent developments address this issue through so-called predictive safety…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-05-16 Kim P. Wabersich , Melanie N. Zeilinger

This work develops a robust adaptive control strategy for discrete-time systems using Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to ensure safety under parametric model uncertainty and disturbances. A key contribution of this work is establishing a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-02-05 Changrui Liu , Anil Alan , Shengling Shi , Bart De Schutter

In this work, we consider the problem of designing a safety filter for a nonlinear uncertain control system. Our goal is to augment an arbitrary controller with a safety filter such that the overall closed-loop system is guaranteed to stay…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-04-11 Lukas Brunke , Siqi Zhou , Angela P. Schoellig

We present a computational framework for synthesizing a single smooth Lyapunov function that certifies both asymptotic stability and safety. We show that the existence of a strictly compatible pair of control barrier and control Lyapunov…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-03 Jun Liu , Maxwell Fitzsimmons

This paper develops a smooth safety-filtering framework for nonlinear control-affine systems under limited perception. Classical Control Barrier Function (CBF) filters assume global availability of the safety function - its value and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-22 Lyes Smaili , Soulaimane Berkane

State estimation uncertainty is prevalent in real-world applications, hindering the application of safety-critical control. Existing methods address this by strengthening a Control Barrier Function (CBF) condition either to handle actuation…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-31 Xiao Tan , Rahal Nanayakkara , Paulo Tabuada , Aaron D. Ames

We develop optimal control strategies for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) that are required to meet complex specifications imposed by traffic laws and cultural expectations of reasonable driving behavior. We formulate these specifications as…

With the increasing complexity of real-world systems and varying environmental uncertainties, it is difficult to build an accurate dynamic model, which poses challenges especially for safety-critical control. In this paper, a learning-based…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-08-13 Sihua Zhang , Di-Hua Zhai , Xiaobing Dai , Tzu-yuan Huang , Yuanqing Xia , Sandra Hirche

This paper proposes a safety-critical controller for dynamic and uncertain environments, leveraging a robust environment control barrier function (ECBF) to enhance the robustness against the measurement and prediction uncertainties…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-03-21 Ying Shuai Quan , Jian Zhou , Erik Frisk , Chung Choo Chung

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

Recent work has shown that stabilizing an affine control system to a desired state while optimizing a quadratic cost subject to state and control constraints can be reduced to a sequence of Quadratic Programs (QPs) by using Control Barrier…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-02-16 Wei Xiao , Calin A. Belta , Christos G. Cassandras

Control barrier functions (CBFs) have seen widespread success in providing forward invariance and safety guarantees for dynamical control systems. A crucial limitation of discrete-time formulations is that CBFs that are nonconcave in their…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-14 James Usevitch , Juan Augusto Paredes Salazar , Ankit Goel