Passivity-Preserving Safety-Critical Control using Control Barrier Functions

Abstract: In this letter we propose a holistic analysis merging the techniques of passivity-based control (PBC) and control barrier functions (CBF). We constructively find conditions under which passivity of the closed-loop system is preserved under CBF-based safety-critical control. The results provide an energetic interpretation of safety-critical control schemes, and induce novel passive designs which are less conservative than standard methods based on damping injection. The results are specialised to port-Hamiltonian systems and simulations are performed on a cart-pole system.