Learning Neural Control Barrier Functions from Offline Data with Conservatism

Safety filters, particularly those based on control barrier functions, have gained increased interest as effective tools for safe control of dynamical systems. Existing correct-by-construction synthesis algorithms, however, suffer from the curse of dimensionality. Deep learning approaches have been proposed in recent years to address this challenge. In this paper, we contribute to this line of work by proposing an algorithm for training control barrier functions from offline datasets. Our algorithm trains the filter to not only prevent the system from reaching unsafe states but also out-of-distribution ones, at which the filter would be unreliable. It is inspired by Conservative Q-learning, an offline reinforcement learning algorithm. We call its outputs Conservative Control Barrier Functions (CCBFs). Our empirical results demonstrate that CCBFs outperform existing methods in maintaining safety and out-of-distribution avoidance while minimally affecting task performance.

@article{tabbara2025_2505.00908,
  title={ Learning Neural Control Barrier Functions from Offline Data with Conservatism },
  author={ Ihab Tabbara and Hussein Sibai },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.00908},
  year={ 2025 }
}