Robot Dynamics Identification

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Overview

Robot dynamics identification studies how to estimate a robot’s motion model so it can predict forces and trajectories for control, simulation, and transfer from simulation to hardware. Common approaches use designed excitation motions with least-squares or Bayesian estimation, online filters and moving-horizon methods, and differentiable simulation; neural networks often capture residual effects that simpler models miss. These methods are tested on manipulators, legged robots, quadrotors, underwater vehicles, and systems with contact or flexible components, where better models can improve tracking and sim-to-real transfer. A central challenge is balancing physically consistent, interpretable models with flexible models that capture complex effects, especially when parameters are hard to distinguish or measurements are limited.

Latest papers

CardsList

58 papers9 papers in the last four weeks, up 13% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Adaptive World-Models for Anomaly Recognition (AWARE): A Framework for Robot Dynamics Prediction and Introspection

    Oct 23, 2026Luke Beddow, George Mavroghenis, Rodrigo Chacon Quesada +5Robotic Anomaly DetectionRobot Failure Detection

    BOLD, Imperial College London

  2. Inertially Significant Humanoid Teleoperation via Whole Body Model Predictive Control and Online Parameter Estimation

    Oct 15, 2026James Foster, Beomyeong Park, Luigi Penco +1Humanoid Robot ControlRobot Teleoperation

    Robotics Lab, Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, USA · Intelligent Systems & Robotics, University of West Florida, USA

  3. Contact-UAN: Unsupervised Actuator Networks as a Residual World Model for Humanoid Control

    Oct 13, 2026Nolan Fey, Khai Nguyen, Yash Prabhu +2Humanoid Robot ControlHumanoid Robot Locomotion

    Improbable AI Lab, MIT

  4. Dissipative Lagrangian Neural Networks for the Interpretable Modelling of Passive Mechanical Systems

    Oct 11, 2026Rob Seabourne, Alice CicirelloLagrangian Neural NetworksSystem Identification

    Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK

  5. Informationally Decoupled Trajectory Design for Sim-to-Real System Identification

    Oct 7, 2026Sangwoo Shin, Ashvin Anilkumar, Ryan Gao +1Robot System IdentificationRobot Dynamics Identification

    University of Wisconsin–Madison

  6. An End-to-End Framework for Modelling Pneumatic Soft Robots Based on Differentiable Finite Element Methods

    Oct 3, 2026Shaohong Zhong, Yao Yao, Perla Maiolino +1Soft RoboticsRobot Dynamics Identification

    Oxford Robotics Institute, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, OX1 3PJ Oxford, U.K

  7. 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

  8. EIDA: Execution-Interface Dynamics Adaptation for Real-to-Sim-to-Real Robot Navigation

    Oct 1, 2026Yiwei Qian, Shanze Wang, Qingyuan Hu +2Robot Dynamics IdentificationRobotics Simulation

    Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, China · National University of Singapore, Singapore · Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong +1

  9. On the Numerical Reliability of Differentiable Physics-Based Optimization for Robotic Material Manipulation

    Sep 28, 2026Xintong Yang, Minglun Wei, Yu-Kun Lai +1Robot Dynamics IdentificationMaterial Point Method

    School of Engineering, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom · School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom · College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University, China

  10. Learning Dissipative Dynamics with Dissipativity-by-Construction Discrete-Time Neural Networks

    Sep 23, 2026Tuan Luong, Hyungpil MoonRobot Dynamics LearningSystem Identification

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, South Korea

  11. ForceTwin: Physics-informed Digital Twins for Robotic Manipulation from Instrumented Human Interaction

    Sep 18, 2026Tim Engelbracht, René Zurbrügg, Mayank Mittal +4Digital TwinsRobotic Manipulation

    ETH Zurich · NVIDIA · Microsoft +1

  12. Adaptive-MHE : A Sampling-Based Adaptive MPC for Legged Loco-Manipulation via Moving Horizon Estimation

    Sep 15, 2026Hossein Keshavarz, Alejandro Ramirez-Serrano, Majid KhadivRobot Dynamics IdentificationLegged Robotics

    University of Calgary, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada · Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany

  13. Port-Hamiltonian Koopman Operator Synthesis for Mechanical Systems

    Sep 15, 2026Rajpal Singh, Aditya Singh, Jishnu KeshavanRobot Dynamics IdentificationKoopman Operator Learning

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka 560012, India

  14. Optimal Excitation Trajectories for System Identification of Underwater Vehicles

    Sep 15, 2026Fotis Panetsos, Kostas J. KyriakopoulosRobot Dynamics IdentificationTrajectory Optimization

    Center for AI & Robotics (CAIR) and the Electrical Eng. Program, Engineering Division, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

  15. When Does Test-Time Physical Diagnosis Pay?

    Sep 14, 2026Zhengshu ZhangTest-Time AdaptationRobot Policy Adaptation

    University of Southern California

  16. Model Predictive Control of Tensegrity Robots via Contact-Aware Graph Neural Dynamics Model

    Sep 8, 2026Nelson Chen, Patrick Meng, Charles Tang +5Robotic ControlRobot Dynamics Identification

    Computer Science, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA. · Mechanical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.

  17. A Hybrid PEM-GP Framework for Uncertainty-Aware System Identification of Quadcopters

    Aug 31, 2026Abdallah Ghoul, Ismail Khalil Bousserhane, Kadri BoufeldjaRobot Dynamics IdentificationNonlinear System Identification

    Electrical Engineering Department, University of Bechar, Bechar 08000, Algeria

  18. Interpreting Control Latents for System Identification via Conditional Flow Matching

    Aug 24, 2026Dingqi Zhang, Ruiqi Zhang, Mark W. MuellerSystem IdentificationRobot Dynamics Identification

    High Performance Robotics Lab, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley

  19. Stochastic Physics-Informed Neural Networks on Lie Groups for Learning Underwater Vehicle Dynamics

    Aug 8, 2026Evan F. Palmer, Ross L. Hatton, Geoffrey A. HollingerRobot Dynamics IdentificationUnderwater Robotics

    Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CoRIS) Institute, Oregon State University, Corvallis OR 97331, USA

  20. Rapid Embodiment Adaptation for Quadrupedal Locomotion

    Aug 2, 2026Dichen Li, Bo Ai, Nico Bohlinger +3Robot Dynamics IdentificationRobot Policy Adaptation

    UC San Diego · Stanford University · TU Darmstadt +2

  21. Sling2Sim2Real: One-Shot Elastic System Identification for Non-Destructive Slingshot Policy Learning

    Jul 25, 2026Wonjae Kang, Geonwoo Kim, Minseok Song +1Robot Dynamics IdentificationRobotics Simulation

    School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea

  22. World Translation: Minimizing Sim-to-Real Gap with Backward Dynamics Extraction and Unpaired Domain Translation

    Jul 20, 2026Xinchen Yao, Leixin Chang, Hua ChenRobot Dynamics IdentificationSynthetic-to-Real Domain Adaptation

    Zhejiang University · LimX Dynamics

  23. Design, Modeling and Experimental Validation of a Miniature Hybrid Underwater Glider With Large-Range Foldable Deflectable Wings

    Jul 15, 2026Yongjian Zhu, Yusen Tao, Feitian ZhangRobot Dynamics IdentificationUnderwater Robotics

    Robotics and Control Laboratory, School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, and the State Key Laboratory of Turbulence and Complex Systems, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

  24. Learning Forced Multibody Dynamics on Lie Groups

    Jul 14, 2026Martine Dyring Hansen, Marta Ghirardelli, Elena Celledoni +2Robot Dynamics IdentificationDynamical Systems

    Department of Mathematics and Cybernetics, SINTEF Digital Forskningsveien 1, 0373 Oslo, Norway · Department of Mathematical Sciences Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Alfred Getz’ vei 1, 7034 Trondheim, Norway · Instituto de Ciencias Matematicas (CSIC) Calle Nicolás Cabrera 13-15, Cantoblanco, 28048 Madrid, Spain

  25. NeuralActuator: Neural Actuation Modeling for Robot Dynamics and External Force Perception

    Jul 13, 2026Zhiyang Dou, John U. Onyemelukwe, Hangxing Zhang +9Neural Surrogate ModelingRobot Dynamics Identification

    1MIT · 2Amazon Robotics

  26. Efficient Transfer Learning of Robot Dynamic Models Using Morphological Similarity

    Jul 6, 2026Pavlo Kupyn, Yuya Hamamatsu, Roza Gkliva +2Robot Dynamics IdentificationUnsupervised Domain Adaptation

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

  27. [Preprint] Dynamic Modeling, Gait Synthesis, and Control of a Novel Subsurface Bore Propagator

    Jul 1, 2026Lina van Brügge, Shruti Kotpalliwar, Anton Koval +2Robotic ControlRobot Dynamics Identification

  28. Physics Models for Sim-to-Real Transfer in Professional-Level Robot Table Tennis

    Jun 27, 2026Christian Conti, Bilan Yang, Alexander Sigrist +4Robot Dynamics IdentificationRobotic Table Tennis

    Sony AI, Tokyo, Japan · Sony AI, Zurich, Switzerland · Sony AI, Zürich, Switzerland

  29. Hardware Design for Table Tennis Robot Capable of Beating Professional Players

    Jun 25, 2026Nobuhiko Mukai, Pavel Adodin, Stefan Heusser +6Robot Dynamics IdentificationTopology Optimization

    Sony AI in Tokyo, Japan · Sony AI in Zürich, Switzerland · Sony Global Manufacturing & Operations in Tokyo, Japan

  30. RigPI: Dynamic Parameter Identification of Rigid Body via VLM-Seeded Differentiable Simulation

    Jun 23, 2026Xincheng He, Rongrong Zhang, Wei Jiang +1Robot Dynamics IdentificationRobotic Manipulation

    Way Robotics