Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Robust and Non-greedy Control Barrier Functions in Spacecraft Proximity Operations

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Wijayatunga, Minduli C., Linares, Richard, Armellin, Roberto
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Wijayatunga, Minduli C.
Linares, Richard
Armellin, Roberto
author_facet Wijayatunga, Minduli C.
Linares, Richard
Armellin, Roberto
contents Autonomous spacecraft inspection and docking missions require controllers that can guarantee safety under thrust constraints and uncertainty. Input-constrained control barrier functions (ICCBFs) provide a framework for safety certification under bounded actuation; however, conventional ICCBF formulations can be overly conservative and exhibit limited robustness to uncertainty, leading to high fuel consumption and reduced mission feasibility. This paper proposes a framework in which the full hierarchy of class-$\mathcal{K}$ functions defining the ICCBF recursion is parameterized and learned, enabling localized shaping of the safe set and reduced conservatism. A control margin is computed efficiently using differential algebra to enable the learned continuous-time ICCBFs to be implemented on time-sampled dynamical systems typical of spacecraft proximity operations. A meta-reinforcement learning scheme is developed to train a policy that generates ICCBF parameters over a distribution of hidden physical parameters and uncertainties, using both multilayer perceptron (MLP) and recurrent neural network (RNN) architectures. Simulation results on cruise control, spacecraft inspection, and docking scenarios demonstrate that the proposed approach maintains safety while reducing fuel consumption and improving feasibility relative to fixed class-$\mathcal{K}$ ICCBFs, with the RNN showing a particularly strong advantage in the more complex inspection case.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_07335
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Robust and Non-greedy Control Barrier Functions in Spacecraft Proximity Operations
Wijayatunga, Minduli C.
Linares, Richard
Armellin, Roberto
Systems and Control
Dynamical Systems
Autonomous spacecraft inspection and docking missions require controllers that can guarantee safety under thrust constraints and uncertainty. Input-constrained control barrier functions (ICCBFs) provide a framework for safety certification under bounded actuation; however, conventional ICCBF formulations can be overly conservative and exhibit limited robustness to uncertainty, leading to high fuel consumption and reduced mission feasibility. This paper proposes a framework in which the full hierarchy of class-$\mathcal{K}$ functions defining the ICCBF recursion is parameterized and learned, enabling localized shaping of the safe set and reduced conservatism. A control margin is computed efficiently using differential algebra to enable the learned continuous-time ICCBFs to be implemented on time-sampled dynamical systems typical of spacecraft proximity operations. A meta-reinforcement learning scheme is developed to train a policy that generates ICCBF parameters over a distribution of hidden physical parameters and uncertainties, using both multilayer perceptron (MLP) and recurrent neural network (RNN) architectures. Simulation results on cruise control, spacecraft inspection, and docking scenarios demonstrate that the proposed approach maintains safety while reducing fuel consumption and improving feasibility relative to fixed class-$\mathcal{K}$ ICCBFs, with the RNN showing a particularly strong advantage in the more complex inspection case.
title Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Robust and Non-greedy Control Barrier Functions in Spacecraft Proximity Operations
topic Systems and Control
Dynamical Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.07335