Shields to Guarantee Probabilistic Safety in MDPs

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Heck, Linus, Macák, Filip, Andriushchenko, Roman, Češka, Milan, Junges, Sebastian
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Heck, Linus
Macák, Filip
Andriushchenko, Roman
Češka, Milan
Junges, Sebastian
author_facet Heck, Linus
Macák, Filip
Andriushchenko, Roman
Češka, Milan
Junges, Sebastian
contents Shielding is a prominent model-based technique to ensure safety of autonomous agents. Classical shielding aims to ensure that nothing bad ever happens and comes with strong guarantees about safety and maximal permissiveness. However, shielding systems for probabilistic safety, where something bad is allowed to happen with an acceptable probability, has proven to be more intricate. This paper presents a formal framework that conservatively extends classical shields to probabilistic safety. In this framework, we (i) demonstrate the impossibility of preserving the strong guarantees on safety and permissiveness, (ii) provide natural shields with weaker guarantees, and (iii) introduce offline and online shield constructions ensuring strong safety guarantees. The empirical evaluation highlights the practical advantages of the new shields, as well as their computational feasibility.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_10888
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Shields to Guarantee Probabilistic Safety in MDPs
Heck, Linus
Macák, Filip
Andriushchenko, Roman
Češka, Milan
Junges, Sebastian
Logic in Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence
Shielding is a prominent model-based technique to ensure safety of autonomous agents. Classical shielding aims to ensure that nothing bad ever happens and comes with strong guarantees about safety and maximal permissiveness. However, shielding systems for probabilistic safety, where something bad is allowed to happen with an acceptable probability, has proven to be more intricate. This paper presents a formal framework that conservatively extends classical shields to probabilistic safety. In this framework, we (i) demonstrate the impossibility of preserving the strong guarantees on safety and permissiveness, (ii) provide natural shields with weaker guarantees, and (iii) introduce offline and online shield constructions ensuring strong safety guarantees. The empirical evaluation highlights the practical advantages of the new shields, as well as their computational feasibility.
title Shields to Guarantee Probabilistic Safety in MDPs
topic Logic in Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.10888