CN-CBF: Composite Neural Control Barrier Function for Safe Robot Navigation in Dynamic Environments

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Derajić, Bojan, Bernhard, Sebastian, Hönig, Wolfgang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Derajić, Bojan
Bernhard, Sebastian
Hönig, Wolfgang
author_facet Derajić, Bojan
Bernhard, Sebastian
Hönig, Wolfgang
contents Safe navigation of autonomous robots remains one of the core challenges in the field, especially in dynamic and uncertain environments. One of the prevalent approaches is safety filtering based on control barrier functions (CBFs), which are easy to deploy but difficult to design. Motivated by the shortcomings of existing learning- and model-based methods, we propose a simple yet effective neural CBF design method for safe robot navigation in dynamic environments. We employ the idea of a composite CBF, where multiple neural CBFs are combined into a single CBF. The individual CBFs are trained via the Hamilton-Jacobi reachability framework to approximate the optimal safe set for single moving obstacles. Additionally, we use the residual neural architecture, which guarantees that the estimated safe set does not intersect with the corresponding failure set. The method is extensively evaluated in simulation experiments for a ground robot and a quadrotor, comparing it against several baseline methods. The results show improved success rates of up to 18\% compared to the best baseline, without increasing the conservativeness of the motion. Also, the method is demonstrated in hardware experiments for both types of robots.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_06921
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CN-CBF: Composite Neural Control Barrier Function for Safe Robot Navigation in Dynamic Environments
Derajić, Bojan
Bernhard, Sebastian
Hönig, Wolfgang
Robotics
Machine Learning
Systems and Control
Safe navigation of autonomous robots remains one of the core challenges in the field, especially in dynamic and uncertain environments. One of the prevalent approaches is safety filtering based on control barrier functions (CBFs), which are easy to deploy but difficult to design. Motivated by the shortcomings of existing learning- and model-based methods, we propose a simple yet effective neural CBF design method for safe robot navigation in dynamic environments. We employ the idea of a composite CBF, where multiple neural CBFs are combined into a single CBF. The individual CBFs are trained via the Hamilton-Jacobi reachability framework to approximate the optimal safe set for single moving obstacles. Additionally, we use the residual neural architecture, which guarantees that the estimated safe set does not intersect with the corresponding failure set. The method is extensively evaluated in simulation experiments for a ground robot and a quadrotor, comparing it against several baseline methods. The results show improved success rates of up to 18\% compared to the best baseline, without increasing the conservativeness of the motion. Also, the method is demonstrated in hardware experiments for both types of robots.
title CN-CBF: Composite Neural Control Barrier Function for Safe Robot Navigation in Dynamic Environments
topic Robotics
Machine Learning
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06921