Probabilistically safe controllers based on control barrier functions and scenario model predictive control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a probabilistic safety control framework combining control barrier functions with a scenario-based model predictive control approach, providing safety guarantees under uncertainty for real-time systems.

Contribution

It proposes a novel safety formulation that enforces probabilistic constraints using CBFs at the first horizon step, with scenario-based transformations ensuring distribution-free safety guarantees.

Findings

Provides distribution-free safety guarantees for uncertain systems.

Demonstrates effectiveness on UAV collision avoidance case study.

Offers numerical comparison with existing stochastic CBF methods.

Abstract

Control barrier functions (CBFs) offer an efficient framework for designing real-time safe controllers. However, CBF-based controllers can be short-sighted, resulting in poor performance, a behaviour which is aggravated in uncertain conditions. This motivated research on safety filters based on model predictive control (MPC) and its stochastic variant. MPC deals with safety constraints in a direct manner, however, its computational demands grow with the prediction horizon length. We propose a safety formulation that solves a finite horizon optimization problem at each time instance like MPC, but rather than explicitly imposing constraints along the prediction horizon, we enforce probabilistic safety constraints by means of CBFs only at the first step of the horizon. The probabilistic CBF constraints are transformed in a finite number of deterministic CBF constraints via the scenario based methodology. Capitalizing on results on scenario based MPC, we provide distribution-free, \emph{a priori} guarantees on the system's closed loop expected safety violation frequency. We demonstrate our results through a case study on unmanned aerial vehicle collision-free position swapping, and provide a numerical comparison with recent stochastic CBF formulations.