cs.ROJul 6, 2026

Efficient Transfer Learning of Robot Dynamic Models Using Morphological Similarity

Authors: Pavlo KupynYuya HamamatsuRoza GklivaAsko RistolainenMaarja Kruusmaa

Organizations: Department of Computer Systems, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

Abstract

This study proposes a neural network-based transfer learning framework for modeling the dynamics of soft, fin-actuated underwater robots. We focus on morphologically similar robots that differ in scale and hydrodynamic properties. A model trained on data from a larger robot (source domain) is adapted to a smaller one (target domain) with limited labeled data. To enable label-efficient transfer, we develop an autoencoder-based domain adaptation approach that learns a shared latent representation aligning the dynamics of both robots. Experiments on two real underwater robots show that the proposed method enables accurate state estimation of the body-frame velocities on a target platform without labeled data, highlighting its potential for efficient cross-robot dynamics transfer among morphologically similar platforms.

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