Integral Control Barrier Functions for Dynamically Defined Control Laws

TL;DR

This paper presents integral control barrier functions (I-CBFs) that enable safety-critical control of nonlinear systems by encoding state constraints and input bounds within a unified framework, demonstrated on a tracking controller.

Contribution

Introduction of I-CBFs for holistic safety enforcement in nonlinear control, integrating state and input constraints in a single quadratic program.

Findings

I-CBFs effectively enforce safety constraints in nonlinear systems.

Application to a tracking controller demonstrates practical safety benefits.

Framework unifies state and input safety considerations.

Abstract

This paper introduces integral control barrier functions (I-CBFs) as a means to enable the safety-critical integral control of nonlinear systems. Importantly, I-CBFs allow for the holistic encoding of both state constraints and input bounds in a single framework. We demonstrate this by applying them to a dynamically defined tracking controller, thereby enforcing safety in state and input through a minimally invasive I-CBF controller framed as a quadratic program.