[Submitted on 14 Oct 2026]
Title:BubbleCBF: Constructive Safety for Second-Order Systems and Application to Autonomous Robot Navigation in Unknown Environments
View a PDF of the paper titled BubbleCBF: Constructive Safety for Second-Order Systems and Application to Autonomous Robot Navigation in Unknown Environments, by Mani Amani and 5 other authors
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Abstract:Satisfying safety constraints for systems with second-order dynamics is challenging because a position constraint may require infeasible deceleration. Higher-order control barrier functions (CBFs) provide an approach for expressing safety conditions for such systems but feasibility depends on the system dynamics and available control authority. We develop a constructive approach for designing feasible safety constraints for second-order control-affine systems. Starting from a signed distance function (SDF), we construct collision-free spheres, i.e., bubbles, in position space, and use their quadratic geometry and overlap to construct a velocity-dependent safety constraint. The associated safe set is represented as a union of intersections and enforced through a quadratic-program safety filter. Under mild assumptions on the dynamics, bubble overlap, and design parameters, we prove that the quadratic-program-based controller is well defined, continuous in the system state, and renders the set forward invariant. We also derive sufficient conditions for feasibility under bounded inputs. We demonstrate that our BubbleCBF, applied to a differential-drive robot, achieves safe autonomous navigation in unknown environments. Videos and results are available at: this https URL.
Subjects:
Robotics (cs.RO)
Cite as: arXiv:2610.20895 [cs.RO]
(or arXiv:2610.20895v1 [cs.RO] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.20895
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
Submission history
From: Mani Amani [view email] [v1] Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:24:47 UTC (6,088 KB)
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