Verification Framework for the Union of Control Barrier Functions

Abstract

Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) have been proposed to ensure safety of autonomous systems. This paper considers control policies that switch between CBF constraints. Under this approach, we represent a complex non-convex safe region as a union of sets that are computationally tractable to verify. We denote this framework as union-CBFs and make the following contributions. First, considering switching CBF-QP controllers, we propose a sufficient condition that ensures (i) the system undergoes a finite number of switches in any finite time interval and ensures (ii) the forward invariance of the closed-loop system in between switches. Second, we consider two types of switching strategies and propose union-CBFs conditions for each strategy to satisfy (i) and (ii). Third, we formulate Sum-of-Squares (SOS) algorithms to verify the conditions. The experiments show that our union-CBFs framework results in a larger safe region compared to high-degree polynomial CBFs. We also show the efficiency of the verification algorithms using a polynomial system model.