Related papers: Learning-based vs Model-free Adaptive Control of a…
Aerial manipulation (AM) expands UAV capabilities beyond passive observation to contact-based operations at high altitudes and in otherwise inaccessible environments. Although recent advances show promise, most AM systems are developed in…
This paper proposes a simulation-based reinforcement learning algorithm for controlling systems with uncertain and varying system parameters. While simulators are useful for safely learning control policies, the reality gap remains a major…
The hybrid nature of multi-contact robotic systems, due to making and breaking contact with the environment, creates significant challenges for high-quality control. Existing model-based methods typically rely on either good prior knowledge…
Soft robots are made of compliant materials and perform tasks that are challenging for rigid robots. However, their continuum nature makes it difficult to develop model-based control strategies. This work presents a robust model-based…
Real-world control applications in complex and uncertain environments require adaptability to handle model uncertainties and robustness against disturbances. This paper presents an online, output-feedback, critic-only, model-based…
We study how to design learning-based adaptive controllers that enable fast and accurate online adaptation in changing environments. In these settings, learning is typically done during an initial (offline) design phase, where the vehicle…
Model-Based Reinforcement Learning involves learning a \textit{dynamics model} from data, and then using this model to optimise behaviour, most often with an online \textit{planner}. Much of the recent research along these lines presents a…
This paper presents a novel model-reference reinforcement learning control method for uncertain autonomous surface vehicles. The proposed control combines a conventional control method with deep reinforcement learning. With the conventional…
In this paper, a multi-objective model-following control problem is solved using an observer-based adaptive learning scheme. The overall goal is to regulate the model-following error dynamics along with optimizing the dynamic variables of a…
For over a decade, model-based reinforcement learning has been seen as a way to leverage control-based domain knowledge to improve the sample-efficiency of reinforcement learning agents. While model-based agents are conceptually appealing,…
Learning-based controllers leverage nonlinear couplings and enhance transients but seldom offer guarantees under tight input constraints. Robust feedback like sliding-mode control (SMC) provides these guarantees but is conservative in…
We present a novel approach to control design for nonlinear systems which leverages model-free policy optimization techniques to learn a linearizing controller for a physical plant with unknown dynamics. Feedback linearization is a…
This paper investigates gradient-based adaptive prediction and control for nonlinear stochastic dynamical systems under a weak convexity condition on the prediction-based loss. This condition accommodates a broad range of nonlinear models…
Control of off-road vehicles is challenging due to the complex dynamic interactions with the terrain. Accurate modeling of these interactions is important to optimize driving performance, but the relevant physical phenomena are too complex…
We study in this paper the problem of adaptive trajectory tracking control for a class of nonlinear systems with parametric uncertainties. We propose to use a modular approach, where we first design a robust nonlinear state feedback which…
Learning-based adaptive control methods hold the premise of enabling autonomous agents to reduce the effect of process variations with minimal human intervention. However, its application to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has so far…
We propose a simple, practical and intuitive approach to improve the performance of a conventional controller in uncertain environments using deep reinforcement learning while maintaining safe operation. Our approach is motivated by the…
In industrial applications of adaptive optimal control often multiple contrary objectives have to be considered. The weights (relative importance) of the objectives are often not known during the design of the control and can change with…
Learning to control robots without requiring engineered models has been a long-term goal, promising diverse and novel applications. Yet, reinforcement learning has only achieved limited impact on real-time robot control due to its high…
Model-based reinforcement learning approaches carry the promise of being data efficient. However, due to challenges in learning dynamics models that sufficiently match the real-world dynamics, they struggle to achieve the same asymptotic…