Adaptive Control

Ask about this topic

Overview

Adaptive control studies how controllers can estimate changing system dynamics or disturbances and adjust actions during operation, rather than relying on a fixed model. Common approaches include recursive least squares and disturbance observers, neural or Gaussian-process residual models, gain scheduling, and reinforcement-learning or meta-learned policies, often combined with model-predictive control, iterative learning, and Lyapunov or control-barrier safety filters. Work spans manipulators, quadrotors, autonomous vehicles, spacecraft, soft robots, and human-robot systems, tested in simulation and hardware under payload changes, friction, wind, actuator faults, contact, and distribution shifts. A central challenge is balancing fast, efficient adaptation against stability, constraint satisfaction, limited safe exploration, and robustness when learned models or policies are wrong.

Latest papers

CardsList

148 papers22 papers in the last four weeks, up 22% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Dual Gradient Consensus for Adaptive Learning to Transient Out-of-Distribution Disturbances in Quadrotor Control

    Oct 25, 2026Mingtian Tan, Vasileios TzoumasQuadrotor ControlDisturbance Rejection

  2. Nonlinear Control of Aerial Manipulator

    Oct 25, 2026Sandesh ThapaAerial RoboticsAerial Manipulation

    School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Control, Robotics & Automation Lab (CoRAL), Spring 2017 Oklahoma State University Stillwater, Oklahoma

  3. Adaptive Control of Scientific Instruments with Nonstationary Responses through Multimodal Agents

    Oct 23, 2026Guoyang Shi, Hongwen Li, Yiding Yu +6Adaptive ControlLanguage Model-Based Control

    Beijing ENN Fusion Energy Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing 101111, China · Beijing Key Laboratory of High Magnetic Field Spherical Torus Fusion Energy, Beijing 101111, China · Hebei Key Laboratory of Compact Fusion, Langfang 065000, China

  4. Adaptive Aerial Loco-Manipulation Policy Learning via LLM-Assisted Proactive Task Generation

    Oct 22, 2026Jingyu Ru, Xiangyuan Xie, Lixuan Jin +8Aerial RoboticsAerial Manipulation

    Faculty of Robot Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China · National Key Laboratory of Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China · School of Artificial Intelligence, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China +1

  5. A Human-in-the-Loop Comparison of Proportional Control and Adaptive Gravity Compensation in Elbow EMG-Driven Exoskeletons

    Oct 19, 2026Francesco Pascucci, Eldison Dimo, Davide Costanzi +2Upper-Limb ExoskeletonsAdaptive Control

    University of Verona, Italy

  6. Paired-Outcome Learning for Selective Spacecraft Attitude Capture under Torque Limits

    Oct 17, 2026Donghe Chen, Jia Deng, Zehao Jia +2Policy LearningAdaptive Control

    School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China · Astroup(Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.

  7. Online Constraint Optimization-Based Indirect-Adaptive Robust Control for Autonomous Vehicles with Unknown Friction

    Oct 15, 2026Yupeng Zhou, I-Chia Chang, Ziran Wang +1Robust ControlAdaptive Control

    College of Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA

  8. Learning Changes the World and Then What Was Learned has Changed: Training and Deploying Neural Networks in the Control Loop

    Oct 15, 2026Vittorio LippiDistribution ShiftFeedback Control

    Calejo Hybrid Intelligence AB, Mellansjö 109, 92592 Tärnaby, Sweden

  9. Adaptive Prescribed Performance Trajectory Tracking for Uncertain Autonomous Underwater Vehicles With Input Saturation

    Oct 14, 2026Athanasios K. Gkesoulis, Christos Vlachos, George K. Fourlas +2Robot Trajectory TrackingAdaptive Control

    The authors are with the Robotics Institute, Athena Research Center, Marousi, Greece · The authors are with the Division of Systems and Automatic Control, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, Greece · The authors are with the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, School of Sciences, University of Thessaly, Lamia, Greece

  10. Planning to Learn: Real-Time Robust Adaptive Control on the GPU with Guaranteed Future Learning

    Oct 14, 2026Anutam Srinivasan, Siddhant Panse, Glen ChouReal-Time Robot ControlAdaptive MPC

    Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering · Georgia Institute of Technology, Schools of Cybersecurity & Privacy, Aerospace Engineering

  11. A Response to the Reply Presented in "A Fair Comparison of Sliding-Mode and Immersion-and-Invariance Observers"

    Oct 14, 2026Luis Cervantes-Pérez, Víctor Santibáñez, Jesús Sandoval +2Sliding Mode ControlAdaptive Control

    Tecnológico Nacional de México / I. T. de La Laguna, Torreón, Coahuila, México · Tecnológico Nacional de México / I. T. de La Paz, La Paz, Baja California Sur, México · Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica / Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, CDMX, Ciudad de México, México

  12. Learning-Based Adaptive MPC for Magnetorquer-Only Satellite Attitude Control

    Oct 14, 2026Patrick Schwartz, Abhishek CauligiModel Predictive ControlAdaptive Control

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

  13. Scaling Latent Motor Adaptation to Coordinated Bimanual Manipulation

    Oct 10, 2026Seung-Bin Joo, Alessandro Albini, Luca Wiehe +3Generalization in Robotic ManipulationAdaptive Control

    Visual Geometry Group, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom · Soft Robotics Lab, Oxford Robotics Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom · Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany +1

  14. History, Adaptation, and Hidden Gain: Two Prospective Tests of Learned Predictive Control in a Synthetic Neural Population

    Oct 9, 2026Mahesh Reddy PagadalaNeural Network ControlAdaptive Control

    Aston University, Birmingham, UK

  15. Adaptive Whole-Body MPC with Optimal Posture Planning for Humanoid Robots under Unknown Payloads

    Oct 9, 2026Manh Cuong Nguyen, Duc Cuong Vu, Viet Anh Vu +5Humanoid Robot ControlAdaptive Control

    VinRobotics, Vingroup, Hanoi 10000, Vietnam · Center for AI Research (CAIR), VinUniversity, Hanoi 10000, Vietnam

  16. Distributionally Robust Adaptive Iterative Covariance Steering for Small-Body Proximity Operations

    Oct 8, 2026Vivek Khatana, Aditya Gahlawat, Naira Hovakimyan +1Spacecraft Rendezvous and Proximity OperationsCollision Avoidance

    Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA · Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA

  17. Logarithmic Regret via Passive Change Detection in Piecewise-Stationary Self-Tuning Regulation

    Oct 7, 2026A. Ch. Madhusudanarao, Rahul SinghAdaptive ControlDynamic Regret Minimization

    Department of Computer Science and Automation Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India · Laboratoire de Recherche de l’EPITA, Paris, France

  18. Belief-Informed Hybrid Control with Almost-Sure Target-Set Convergence

    Oct 6, 2026Clinton Enwerem, Saleh Kemal, John S. Baras +1Belief-Space PlanningAdaptive Control

    Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

  19. MOSAIC-SV: Real-Time Adaptive Identification of Vessel Dynamics for the Control and Deployment of Aquatic Robots

    Oct 2, 2026Wensen Liu, Jerry Peng, Shravani Vedagiri +1Robot Dynamics IdentificationOnline System Identification

    Mechanical Engineering Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

  20. L1-MPPI: L1 Adaptive Model Predictive Path Integral for Agile UAV Control

    Sep 29, 2026Lukáš Kotek, Ondřej Procházka, Vojtěch Vonásek +2Robot Trajectory TrackingQuadrotor Control

    Multi-robot Systems Group, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic

  21. Learning from Shared-Control Overrides: Context-Driven Acceleration Profile Prediction for Personalized Overtaking

    Sep 29, 2026Ruizheng Xu, Lounis Adouane, Javier Ibañez-Guzmán +1Autonomous DrivingData-Driven Control

    Heudiasyc · Ampere Software Technology, Renault Group, Guyancourt, France.

  22. Statistical Learning of Contractive Dynamical Representations for Composite Adaptive Control

    Sep 28, 2026Min Kim, José Leonardo Brenes, Fred Hadaegh +1Representation LearningLatent Dynamics Modeling

    California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA 91125 USA. · Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA 91109 USA.

  23. Contact-Adaptive Robotic Ultrasound Probe Control for Tissue Exploration and Continuous Task-Relevant Visualization Using Robot-Free Image-Motion Demonstration

    Sep 27, 2026Seong Jeong, Minsung Kim, Dongho Yee +8Robotic UltrasoundAdaptive Control

    Department of Transdisciplinary Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital · Rosota Inc., Seoul, Republic of Korea · Department of Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine +6

  24. Sharp Critical Minimax Laws and No-Learning Thresholds in Continuous-Time Adaptive Control

    Sep 27, 2026Chen JiaAdaptive ControlStochastic Optimal Control

  25. PRIME-ANC: Path-Ratio-Informed Modeling for Efficient Neural Filter Synthesis in Active Noise Control

    Sep 24, 2026Yaokun Huang, Chunyang Xu, Haowen Hua +3Adaptive Control

    Center of Auditory and Language Intelligence, Soochow University, Suzhou, China · School of Future Science and Engineering, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

  26. The Source of Disturbance Matters: External, Internal, and Control-Generated Noise in Adaptive Regulation

    Sep 22, 2026Veronique ZieglerAdaptive Control

    Independent Researcher, Critical Attention Systems

  27. SG-CPG: Severity-Gated Central Pattern Generators for Adaptive Quadruped Locomotion under Continuous Actuator Degradation

    Sep 22, 2026Adarsh Kumar Kosta, Kaushik RoyDynamical SystemsFault-Tolerant Control

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA

  28. A Switched Adaptive Control Framework for Aerial Manipulators Under Dynamic Transitions

    Sep 21, 2026Rishabh Dev Yadav, Saksham Gupta, Amitabh Sharma +4Aerial RoboticsAdaptive Control

    Department of Computer Science, The University of Manchester, UK · Robotics Research Center, International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, India · School of Mathematics, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

  29. Design and Control of a Cable-Driven Switchable Actuator with Torque/Tension Dual Modes for Exoskeletons

    Sep 20, 2026YuanLong Ji, Xu Liu, Xinyuan Cai +8Robotic ControlRobotics

    School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University; the Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology (Beihang University), Ministry of Education; Key Laboratory of Innovation and Transformation of Advanced Medical Devices, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; National Medical Innovation Platform for Industry-Education Integration in Advanced Medical Devices (Interdiscipline of Medicine and Engineering), Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China · School of Engineering Medicine, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China · School of Physics and Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Longyan University, Longyan, 364012, China

  30. Adaptive Uncertainty-Aware Modeling and Stochastic Radial Basis Function Predictive Control for Personalized Fluid Resuscitation

    Sep 18, 2026Elham Estiri, Hossein MirinejadModel Predictive ControlHealthcare

    School of Engineering, College of Aeronautics and Engineering, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242 USA