Towards Data-Driven Model-Free Safety-Critical Control

Abstract: This paper presents a framework for enabling safe velocity control of general robotic systems using data-driven model-free Control Barrier Functions (CBFs). Model-free CBFs rely on an exponentially stable velocity controller and a design parameter (e.g. alpha in CBFs); this design parameter depends on the exponential decay rate of the controller. However, in practice, the decay rate is often unavailable, making it non-trivial to use model-free CBFs, as it requires manual tuning for alpha. To address this, a Neural Network is used to learn the Lyapunov function from data, and the maximum decay rate of the systems built-in velocity controller is subsequently estimated. Furthermore, to integrate the estimated decay rate with model-free CBFs, we derive a probabilistic safety condition that incorporates a confidence bound on the violation rate of the exponential stability condition, using Chernoff bound. This enhances robustness against uncertainties in stability violations. The proposed framework has been tested on a UR5e robot in multiple experimental settings, and its effectiveness in ensuring safe velocity control with model-free CBFs has been demonstrated.