Advances in the theory of control barrier functions: Addressing practical challenges in safe control synthesis for autonomous and robotic systems

K Garg, J Usevitch, J Breeden, M Black… - Annual Reviews in …, 2024 - Elsevier
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 …

Composing control barrier functions for complex safety specifications

TG Molnar, AD Ames - IEEE Control Systems Letters, 2023 - ieeexplore.ieee.org
The increasing complexity of control systems necessitates control laws that guarantee safety
wrt complex combinations of constraints. In this letter, we propose a framework to describe …

Prescribed-time safety design for strict-feedback nonlinear systems

I Abel, D Steeves, M Krstić… - IEEE Transactions on …, 2023 - ieeexplore.ieee.org
Safety in dynamical systems is commonly pursued using control barrier functions (CBFs)
which enforce safety-constraints over the entire duration of a system's evolution. We propose …

Distributed control for a robotic swarm to pass through a curve virtual tube

Q Quan, Y Gao, C Bai - Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2023 - Elsevier
To guide a robotic swarm in a cluttered environment, a curve virtual tube is designed in this
paper. There is no obstacle within the curve virtual tube, and the area inside can be seen as …

Autonomous spacecraft attitude reorientation using robust sampled-data control barrier functions

J Breeden, D Panagou - Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 2023 - arc.aiaa.org
This paper presents a provably safe method for constrained reorientation of a spacecraft in
the presence of input constraints, bounded disturbances, and fixed frequency zero-order …

Hierarchical relaxation of safety-critical controllers: Mitigating contradictory safety conditions with application to quadruped robots

J Lee, J Kim, AD Ames - 2023 IEEE/RSJ International …, 2023 - ieeexplore.ieee.org
The safety-critical control of robotic systems often must account for multiple, potentially
conflicting, safety constraints. This paper proposes novel relaxation techniques to address …

Learning performance-oriented control barrier functions under complex safety constraints and limited actuation

S Chen, M Fazlyab - arxiv preprint arxiv:2401.05629, 2024 - arxiv.org
Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) provide an elegant framework for designing safety filters for
nonlinear control systems by constraining their trajectories to an invariant subset of a …

Consolidated control barrier functions: Synthesis and online verification via adaptation under input constraints

M Black, D Panagou - arxiv preprint arxiv:2304.01815, 2023 - arxiv.org
In this paper, we develop a novel adaptation-based approach to constrained control design
under multiple state and input constraints. Specifically, we introduce a method for …

Feasible space monitoring for multiple control barrier functions with application to large scale indoor navigation

H Parwana, M Black, B Hoxha, H Okamoto… - arxiv preprint arxiv …, 2023 - arxiv.org
Quadratic programs (QP) subject to multiple time-dependent control barrier function (CBF)
based constraints have been used to design safety-critical controllers. However, ensuring …

Domain adaptive safety filters via deep operator learning

L Manda, S Chen, M Fazlyab - arxiv preprint arxiv:2410.14528, 2024 - arxiv.org
Learning-based approaches for constructing Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are
increasingly being explored for safety-critical control systems. However, these methods …