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Main Authors: He, Kanghui, Shi, Shengling, Boom, Ton van den, De Schutter, Bart
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.11255
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author He, Kanghui
Shi, Shengling
Boom, Ton van den
De Schutter, Bart
author_facet He, Kanghui
Shi, Shengling
Boom, Ton van den
De Schutter, Bart
contents 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 constrained optimization problem to produce safe policies. However, finding a valid CBF for a general nonlinear system requires a complex function parameterization, which in general, makes the policy optimization problem difficult to solve in real time. For nonlinear systems with nonlinear state constraints, this paper proposes the novel concept of state-action CBFs, which not only characterize the safety at each state but also evaluate the control inputs taken at each state. State-action CBFs, in contrast to CBFs, enable a flexible parameterization, resulting in a safety filter that involves a convex quadratic optimization problem. This, in turn, significantly alleviates the online computational burden. To synthesize state-action CBFs, we propose a learning-based approach exploiting Hamilton-Jacobi reachability. The effect of learning errors on the effectiveness of state-action CBFs is addressed by constraint tightening and introducing a new concept called contractive CBFs. These contributions ensure formal safety guarantees for learned CBFs and control policies, enhancing the applicability of learning-based control in real-time scenarios. Simulation results on an inverted pendulum with elastic walls validate the proposed CBFs in terms of constraint satisfaction and CPU time.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2312_11255
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle State-action control barrier functions: Imposing safety on learning-based control with low online computational costs
He, Kanghui
Shi, Shengling
Boom, Ton van den
De Schutter, Bart
Systems and Control
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 constrained optimization problem to produce safe policies. However, finding a valid CBF for a general nonlinear system requires a complex function parameterization, which in general, makes the policy optimization problem difficult to solve in real time. For nonlinear systems with nonlinear state constraints, this paper proposes the novel concept of state-action CBFs, which not only characterize the safety at each state but also evaluate the control inputs taken at each state. State-action CBFs, in contrast to CBFs, enable a flexible parameterization, resulting in a safety filter that involves a convex quadratic optimization problem. This, in turn, significantly alleviates the online computational burden. To synthesize state-action CBFs, we propose a learning-based approach exploiting Hamilton-Jacobi reachability. The effect of learning errors on the effectiveness of state-action CBFs is addressed by constraint tightening and introducing a new concept called contractive CBFs. These contributions ensure formal safety guarantees for learned CBFs and control policies, enhancing the applicability of learning-based control in real-time scenarios. Simulation results on an inverted pendulum with elastic walls validate the proposed CBFs in terms of constraint satisfaction and CPU time.
title State-action control barrier functions: Imposing safety on learning-based control with low online computational costs
topic Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.11255