Constructive Safety-Critical Control for a Class of Underactuated Systems: A Hierarchical Approach
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Underactuated systems with nontrivial geometry are abundant in practical robotic problems. However, little is known about constructive safety-critical control design in the presence of underactuation. In this work, we provide a constructive framework for synthesizing safe control architectures and control barrier functions for a class of quadrotor-like underactuated systems. By studying the geometry of their underactuation, we characterize when these systems have natural layered architectures useful for safety-critical control design. Using these architectures, we devise a constructive, hierarchical CBF synthesis procedure and provide conditions under which it succeeds.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: de Sa, Massimiliano, Ames, Aaron D.
Institution: California Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Computational Theory and Mathematics
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221115641