English

Gradient-free training of neural ODEs for system identification and control using ensemble Kalman inversion

Machine Learning 2023-07-18 v1 Numerical Analysis Systems and Control Systems and Control Numerical Analysis Computational Physics

Abstract

Ensemble Kalman inversion (EKI) is a sequential Monte Carlo method used to solve inverse problems within a Bayesian framework. Unlike backpropagation, EKI is a gradient-free optimization method that only necessitates the evaluation of artificial neural networks in forward passes. In this study, we examine the effectiveness of EKI in training neural ordinary differential equations (neural ODEs) for system identification and control tasks. To apply EKI to optimal control problems, we formulate inverse problems that incorporate a Tikhonov-type regularization term. Our numerical results demonstrate that EKI is an efficient method for training neural ODEs in system identification and optimal control problems, with runtime and quality of solutions that are competitive with commonly used gradient-based optimizers.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.07882,
  title  = {Gradient-free training of neural ODEs for system identification and control using ensemble Kalman inversion},
  author = {Lucas Böttcher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.07882},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

10 pages, 3 figures, Workshop on New Frontiers in Learning, Control, and Dynamical Systems at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, 2023

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:31:26.226Z