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URLhttps://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2025-WEPD074
TitleTowards safe and robust neural network controllers at CERN: a review of methods and challenges
Authors
  • X. Fink, B. Fernandez Adiego, B. Schofield
    European Organization for Nuclear Research
  • J. Katoen
    RWTH Aachen University
AbstractAdvances in optimization and machine learning algorithms have shown great potential when applied to control systems of many industries, such as automotive, avionics and aerospace. At CERN, we also find many initiatives applied to our particle accelerators and industrial facilities. In recent years, neural networks are increasingly being explored as components or even full replacements for model-based control systems, which rely on handcrafted rules or hard optimization schemes. In contrast, neural networks promise near-optimal performance while being trainable purely on existing data. However, for critical control systems it is of great importance that any control-policy or dynamics-model conforms to predictable behavior and adheres to strict requirements. While model-based control realizes this via construction, neural networks models are known to exhibit unpredictable behavior, such as adversarial examples. Due to this, the use of formal methods for guaranteeing properties on neural networks has been widely explored in the literature. In this paper, we present an overview of the safety, robustness and stability challenges posed by neural network-based control systems at CERN. We examine how these challenges can be specified as formal properties and discuss state-of-the-art techniques for verifying and mitigating them.
Paperdownload: WEPD074.pdf
CiteBibTeX, LaTeX, Text/Word, RIS, EndNote
Conference20th Int. Conf. Accel. Large Exp. Phys. Control Syst. (ICALEPCS'25)
Series
LocationChicago, IL, USA
Date20-26 Sep 2025
PublisherJACoW Publishing, Geneva, Switzerland
Editorial BoardKent Wootton (ANL), Jeffery Biss (FNAL), Gustavo Bruno (ANL), Jeff Kirchman (ANL), Kelly Jaje (ANL), Denise Skiadopoulos (ANL), SuYin Grass Wang (ANL)
Online ISBN978-3-95450-255-4
Online ISSN2226-0358
Received05 September 2025
Revised23 October 2025
Accepted03 November 2025
Issued25 November 2025
DOI10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2025-WEPD074
Pages1207-1213