Robot Trajectory Tracking

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Overview

Robot trajectory tracking studies how a robot can follow a desired path or time-varying motion, which is essential for tasks such as manipulation, navigation, flight, and locomotion. Common approaches include feedback control such as PID, backstepping, and sliding-mode methods; model-predictive control; and adaptive, learning-based, and iterative-learning controllers that compensate for uncertain dynamics or repeated errors. Work spans mobile robots, aerial vehicles, manipulators, soft robots, and humanoids, with attention to sensing, actuator limits, collision avoidance, and real-time computation. A central challenge is balancing precise tracking with robustness and safety when models, terrain, payloads, contact, or reference motions change.

Latest papers

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137 papers17 papers in the last four weeks, down 15% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Spiking Neuromorphic Control for Periodic Orbits Stabilization in Underactuated Robots: A Greedy Lyapunov-Based Approach

    Oct 27, 2026Maksim Surov, Oleg SumenkovRobotic ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    The authors are with Mathematical Robotics Science Division, Sirius University of Science and Technology, Olympiyskiy Av. 1, Sirius, 354340 Russia

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

    Oct 25, 2026Mingtian Tan, Vasileios TzoumasQuadrotor ControlDisturbance Rejection

  3. Trajectory Generation and Control for Quadrotors

    Oct 25, 2026Sandesh ThapaQuadrotor ControlTrajectory Generation

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

  4. Integrated Longitudinal and Lateral Control for High-Speed Platooning of Articulated Vehicles

    Oct 21, 2026Aashish Shaju, Steve Southward, Mehdi AhmadianAutonomous DrivingIntelligent Transportation Systems

    Center for Vehicle Systems and Safety (CVeSS), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA

  5. Payload generalization on feedforward control actions for trajectory tracking in robots with rigid and elastic joints

    Oct 21, 2026Giorgia Pazzi, Giorgio Simonini, Michele Pierallini +4Robotic ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    Centro di Ricerca “Enrico Piaggio”, Università di Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino 1, Pisa, 56126, Italy · Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Pisa, Via G. Caruso 16, Pisa, 56122, Italy · Soft Robotics for Human Cooperation and Rehabilitation, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, 16163, Italy

  6. Reinforced Iterative Learning Control for elastic joint arms: Guaranteed cross-trajectory generalization under model uncertainties

    Oct 20, 2026Yuri De Santis, Michele Pierallini, Franco Angelini +1Robot Trajectory TrackingIterative Learning Control

    Centro di Ricerca “Enrico Piaggio”, Università di Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino 1, Pisa, 56122, Italy · Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Pisa, Via G. Caruso 16, Pisa, 56122, Italy

  7. RoboMMT: Learning Stable Tracking of Modulated Expressive and Interactive Robot Motion

    Oct 19, 2026Till Hielscher, Kai O. ArrasRobotic ControlRobot Motion Generation

    Socially Intelligent Robotics Lab, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, University of Stuttgart, Germany

  8. Rollbot 2: Agile Locomotion by a Single-Actuator Spherical Robot

    Oct 16, 2026Jingxian Wang*, Chen Yu*, Sam Kriegman +1Robot LocomotionRobot Navigation

    Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208 USA.

  9. MR-MPCC: Model Predictive Contouring Control for Robotic Manipulator Tracking under Moving Reference Frames

    Oct 15, 2026Chonghao Cheng, Tiancheng Li, Jonathan Woolfrey +2Robotic ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    Robotics Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. · School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

  10. 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

  11. VIGOR-MPC: Vision-Guided Objective Regulation MPC

    Oct 14, 2026Jelena Trisovic, Rahel Rickenbach, Marek Landert +2Vision-Based Robot ControlModel Predictive Control

    Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich, Switzerland · ETH AI Center

  12. MSC: Multi-Stage Caster-aware Control Framework with Uncertainty-Aware NMPC and RL-based Execution Layer

    Oct 12, 2026Jinho Park, Jeongtae Lee, Jeonghyeok Lim +2Robot Trajectory TrackingNonlinear MPC

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

  13. Energy-Aware Path Following: Comparative Analysis of Reinforcement Learning and NMPC for Electric Vehicles

    Oct 6, 2026Mohamed Sabaa, Mostafa EmamRobot Trajectory TrackingNonlinear MPC

    Computer Science Department, Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia · Institute of Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computing, University of the Bundeswehr Munich, Neubiberg, 85579, Germany

  14. MagServo: Uncertainty-Resilient Hierarchical Magnetic Servoing via Learned Latent Representations

    Oct 5, 2026Yuhan Tan, Yameng Zhang, Pei Liu +2Robotic ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, UK. · Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR. · School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Germany.

  15. Path-Following Control and Terramechanics Analysis for Planetary Rovers Under Wheel-to-Wheel Traction Asymmetry

    Sep 30, 2026Ryuya Matsuoka, Keisuke Takehana, Kentaro Uno +2Robot Trajectory TrackingSpace Robotics

    Department of Aerospace Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan · Research Center for Green X-Tech, Green Goals Initiative, Tohoku University · Research Center for Space Cross-Tech, Green Goals Initiative, Tohoku University

  16. Onboard Vision and MPC Navigation for Underwater Robots: An Open BlueROV2 Platform for Multi-Robot Experiments & Docking

    Sep 29, 2026Victor Nan Fernandez-Ayala, Wiktor Kowalczyk, Cezary Banaszek +1Robot Trajectory TrackingUnderwater Robotics

    Department of Decision and Control Systems, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

  17. 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

  18. MagNav: A Dual-Core Magnetic Track Guidance Framework for Lighting-Invariant Navigation in Two-Wheeled Robots

    Sep 28, 2026Arpita Kumari, Anupam Chatterjee, Richa SrivastavaRobotic ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering Krishna Institute of Engineering & Technology (KIET), Ghaziabad, Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, India.

  19. A Field-Deployable GNSS-based Navigation Stack for Outdoor Mobile Robots

    Sep 24, 2026Yiyuan Lin, Cole Regnier, Yu JiangRobot Trajectory TrackingRobot Navigation

    School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA · School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell AgriTech, Cornell University, Geneva, NY, USA

  20. Learning Air-Ground Motion Control with Temporal Mode Switching and Cross-Terrain Tracking

    Sep 22, 2026Ruitian Pang, Mingrui Li, Xuanting Liu +10RL ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    The State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. · Department of Dynamics and Control, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China. · Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. +1

  21. MAVP: Map-Aware Visuomotor Policies for Mobile Manipulation

    Sep 22, 2026Jinhe Tang, Ruixiao Dai, Weiming ZhiRobot Trajectory TrackingRobot Policy Learning

    School of Computer Science, The University of Sydney, Australia

  22. Safety Control of a Hyper-redundant Robot via Adaptive Weighted Control Barrier Functions

    Sep 21, 2026Zijian Cai, Kiwan Wong, Wenci Xin +3Robot Trajectory TrackingControl Barrier Functions

    Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, Singapore · CSAIL, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA · School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore +1

  23. Decentralized Safe Path Following for Multiple Quadrotors on Intersecting Paths with Theoretical Guarantees

    Sep 20, 2026Hamza Tariq, Adeel AkhtarQuadrotor ControlMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA

  24. Prescribed-Time Contracting-Boundary Control of a Tendon-Driven Flexible Arm

    Sep 19, 2026Yi Lu, Chao Tang, Zhiji Han +1Robot Trajectory TrackingFeedback Control

    School of Information Management, Hubei University of Economics, No. 8 Yangqiaohu Road, Canglongdao Development Park, Jiangxia District, Wuhan, 430205, China · College of Engineering, Ocean University of China, No. 1299 Sansha Road, Qingdao West Coast New Area, Qingdao, 266404, China

  25. Constraint-Unified MPC for Over-Actuated Surface Vehicles with Post-Detection Fault Reconfiguration

    Sep 17, 2026Sebastian Burmester, Ruiheng Jiang, Noa Sendlhofer +2Unmanned Surface VehicleRobot Trajectory Tracking

    Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control (IDSC), ETH Zürich, Switzerland

  26. Decoupling Physical Speed from Path Parameterization in Singularity-Free Guiding Vector Fields

    Sep 17, 2026Zhouru Xiao, Sha Luo, Yang Lu +5Robot Trajectory Tracking

    School of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Hunan University, Changsha, China · College of Information Science and Engineering, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China · College of Systems Engineering and the State Key Laboratory of Digital Intelligent Modeling and Simulation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, China +2

  27. IL-ACT: Imitation Learning with Adaptive Cartesian Tracking Control for a 30-ton Excavator

    Sep 15, 2026Mehdi Heydari Shahna, Seihun Kim, Soyi Jung +3Robotic ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland · Department of Defense Convergence Technology, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea +2

  28. Collision-Aware Humanoid Whole-Body Control under Imperfect Tracking Targets

    Sep 14, 2026Mohitvishnu S. Gadde, Ashish Malik, Pranay Dugar +3Robot Trajectory TrackingHumanoid Robot Control

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

  29. Distributed Safe Cooperative Vector Field for Trajectory Curvature Constrained Multi-Robot Systems

    Sep 14, 2026Zhouru Xiao, Tao Teng, Weijia Yao +3Robot Trajectory TrackingRobot Navigation

    School of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China · College of Intelligence Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410082, China

  30. An Adaptive Fixed-Time Line-of-Sight Guidance Scheme for 3D Path Following of Underwater Vehicles: Theory and Experiment

    Sep 13, 2026Hanzhi Yang, Jalil Chavez-Galaviz, Nina MahmoudianRobot Trajectory TrackingUnderwater Robotics

    School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 USA