Cited by 611Reinforcement Learning in RoboticsAdaptive Dynamic Programming ControlFormal Methods in Verification

End-to-End Safe Reinforcement Learning through Barrier Functions for Safety-Critical Continuous Control Tasks

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Cheng, Richard, Orosz, Gábor, Murray, Richard M., Burdick, Joel W.·2019·Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms have found limited success beyond simulated applications, and one main reason is the absence of safety guarantees during the learning process. Real world systems would realistically fail or break before an optimal controller can be learned. To address this issue, we propose a controller architecture that combines (1) a model-free RL-based controller with (2) model-based controllers utilizing control barrier functions (CBFs) and (3) online learning of the unknown system dynamics, in order to ensure safety during learning. Our general framework leverages the success of RL algorithms to learn high-performance controllers, while the CBF-based controllers both guarantee safety and guide the learning process by constraining the set of explorable polices. We utilize Gaussian Processes (GPs) to model the system dynamics and its uncertainties. Our novel controller synthesis algorithm, RL-CBF, guarantees safety with high probability during the learning process, regardless of the RL algorithm used, and demonstrates greater policy exploration efficiency. We test our algorithm on (1) control of an inverted pendulum and (2) autonomous carfollowing with wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and show that our algorithm attains much greater sample efficiency in learning than other state-of-the-art algorithms and maintains safety during the entire learning process.

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Crossref · 10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33013387

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  • RL algorithms have been increasingly adopted by the robotics community over the past years to control complex robots or multi-robot systems, or provide end-to-end policies from perception to control.

    “Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms have been increasingly adopted by the robotics community over the past years to control complex robots or multi-robot systems [1], [2], or provide end-to-end policies from perception to control [3].”

    From Sim-to-Real Transfer in Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotics: a Survey (2020) · cites this paper as [3]

    The Introduction (p. 2) describes an end-to-end safe RL controller for nonlinear control systems, which supports the reference to end-to-end control policies. It does not describe a policy that runs from perception to control; the paper’s “end-to-end” qualifier refers to safety during learning. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Authors
Cheng, R., Orosz, G., Murray, R. M., & Burdick, J. W.
Affiliations
  • California Institute of Technology (US)
  • University of Michigan (US)
Venue
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Published
2019-07-17
Volume
33
Issue
01
Pages
3387-3395
ISSN
  • 2159-5399 (ISSN-L)
  • 2374-3468
OpenAlex
W2966735560
Cited by
611
References
34
Citations by year
2026: 79 · 2025: 84 · 2024: 79 · 2023: 102 · 2022: 84 · 2021: 112 · 2020: 60 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 1
FWCI
25.44
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • AAAI Publications (The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)) (submittedVersion)
  • CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Adaptive Dynamic Programming Control
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Formal Methods in Verification
Keywords
safe reinforcement learning, control barrier functions, safety-critical control, continuous control, model-based control, policy exploration, sample efficiency, inverted pendulum, vehicle-to-vehicle communication

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