Robust Control

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9 papers in the last four weeks, up 125% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

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Latest papers 94

Jul 9, 2026eess.SY

Input-Constrained Spatiotemporal Tubes for Safe Navigation of Unknown Euler-Lagrange Systems in Dynamic Environments

Safe navigation in dynamic environments is challenging when system dynamics are unknown and actuator inputs are limited. Existing methods either rely on accurate models, require online optimization, or do not explicitly account for input constraints. This paper presents a real-time control framework for unknown Euler-Lagrange systems that guarantees finite-time reach-avoid-stay (FT-RAS) specifications while respecting actuator limits. We extend the spatiotemporal tube (STT) framework by incorporating input constraints into the controller design and derive offline-verifiable feasibility conditions that relate the available control authority to the tube design and uncertainty bounds. The resulting framework is approximation-free and computationally efficient, making it suitable for real-time implementation. The proposed approach is validated through simulations on a mobile robot, a quadrotor, and a spacecraft, together with hardware experiments on a mobile robot, demonstrating safe navigation while satisfying actuator constraints.

Siddhartha Upadhyay, Ratnangshu Das, Pushpak Jagtap

Department of Cyber-Physical Systems Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India · Department of Cyber-Physical Systems Indian Institute of Science„ Bengaluru, India

Dynamical Systems Robust Control Safe Robot Navigation Feedback Control Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance

Jul 7, 2026cs.RO

Neural-ESO: A Dual-Pathway Architecture for Provably Robust Learning-Based Control

A learning-enabled disturbance-rejection framework based on a Neural Extended State Observer (Neural-ESO) is presented in this letter. Unlike existing learning-based control methods that largely rely on the learned model once deployed, Neural-ESO adopts a dual-pathway architecture: a predictive pathway uses a neural network to provide a feedforward disturbance estimate that accelerates convergence, while a corrective pathway employs a conventional ESO to compensate prediction errors and prevent over-reliance on the neural component. Using Lyapunov theory and a small-gain analysis, we show that enforcing a Lipschitz bound on the learning component guarantees uniform ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop error dynamics. The proposed framework is validated on a quadrotor landing task subject to strong ground-effect disturbances across normal and out-of-distribution scenarios, demonstrating accuracy-robustness trade-off and greater operational reliability during training, deployment, and transfer compared with state-of-the-art baselines.

Fan Zhang, Richie Suganda, Jinfeng Chen +4

Department of Engineering Technology, University of Houston, USA · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, USA · Department of Electrical Engineering, Rice University, USA

Jul 3, 2026cs.RO

Longitudinal-Motion-Aware Lateral Control for Autonomous Vehicles: A Robust Nonlinear Control Framework

As autonomous vehicles (AVs) operate in increasingly dynamic traffic conditions, lateral control must be performed while longitudinal speed and acceleration vary. Yet many existing lateral controllers rely on constant-speed or operating-point-based assumptions, which can degrade performance during transient longitudinal maneuvers. Moreover, most methods assume precisely known vehicle parameters, despite real-world parametric uncertainties. To address these limitations, this paper presents a longitudinal-motion-aware robust nonlinear lateral control framework for AVs. It first derives a tracking error model that depends on varying longitudinal speed and acceleration. Using this model, feedback linearization is employed to obtain a linear input-output relation for lateral error tracking while embedding longitudinal motion into the control law. The resulting internal dynamics are then analyzed to ensure overall system stability. To address parameter uncertainty, two robust control designs with distinct implementation trade-offs are proposed: (i) a Lyapunov redesign (LR) approach inspired by sliding mode control, and (ii) an incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion (INDI) method. Both are rigorously analyzed and proven to ensure ultimate boundedness, with key robustness-tuning parameters explicitly identified. Simulations demonstrate enhanced tracking accuracy, consistent performance across varying speeds and accelerations, and robustness to model uncertainties, while also examining the effects of the robustness-related parameters. Real-vehicle tests further confirm real-time implementation and practical path-tracking performance on actual hardware.

Sixu Li, Nitesh Kumar, Reyshwanth Ganeshan +3

Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

Autonomous Driving Robust Control Vehicle Dynamics Feedback Control Feedback Linearization Optimization

Jul 2, 2026cs.RO

Saturation-Aware Robust Trajectory Optimization for Reusable Launch Vehicles via Differentiable Physics

The high-angle-of-attack flip maneuver of reusable launch vehicles presents significant challenges for robust trajectory optimization due to the combined effects of highly nonlinear dynamics, aerodynamic uncertainties, and actuator saturation. This paper presents a differentiable physics framework for saturation-aware robust trajectory optimization. At its core, a Differentiable Particle Tube Control (DPTC) scheme is developed to optimize uncertainty evolution through an ensemble-based distribution shaping strategy. State uncertainty is represented by a Lagrangian particle ensemble, while hard actuator projection operators are embedded directly into the computational graph, enabling the joint optimization of the nominal feedforward trajectory and a time-varying feedback policy via end-to-end backpropagation. The proposed framework is evaluated against an automatic differentiation-based Successive Convexification (AD-SCvx) baseline combined with a conventional covariance steering feedback strategy. Six-degree-of-freedom Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that, although the baseline achieves nominal fuel-optimal solutions, its unconstrained feedback formulation becomes susceptible to actuator saturation under aerodynamic disturbances, leading to degraded closed-loop robustness. In contrast, the proposed DPTC framework proactively performs a constraint-aware performance trade-off by relaxing spatial tracking to preserve critical control authority. These results demonstrate that integrating differentiable physics with ensemble-based optimization provides an effective and practical framework for robust guidance in highly constrained aerospace flight systems.

Liwei Chen, Tong Qin

Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Systems Engineering, Beijing 100076, China

Trajectory Optimization Robust Control Feedback Control Differentiable Optimization

Jul 1, 2026eess.SY

GPU-Parallel Linearization Error Bounds for Real-Time Robust Optimal Control of Nonlinear and Neural Network Dynamics

This paper studies real-time robust optimal control for uncertain nonlinear systems, where linear time-varying (LTV) approximations make planning tractable but require sound linearization error bounds (LEBs) to guarantee robust constraint satisfaction. We develop tight, differentiable, GPU-parallel LEBs for LTV approximations of nonlinear and neural network (NN) dynamics. For analytic dynamics, we introduce path-based Hessian bounds that are tighter than standard interval methods. For NN dynamics, we derive certified LEBs using NN verifier-generated affine relaxations and local Jacobian corrections. We adapt a GPU-parallel system-level synthesis LTV-based robust control solver to be compatible with these LEBs by extending it to handle right-invertible disturbance matrices and non-zero-centered disturbance sets for tight zonotopic uncertainty propagation. Our method, GPUSLS-LEO, enables online optimization of robust feedback policies that account for linearization error, producing tight, formally verified reachable tubes. On complex nonlinear and NN dynamics up to 168 state dimensions, our method can compute robust control policies on the GPU at rates up to 67 Hz, reducing solve times and conservativeness relative to baselines while preserving formal guarantees and real-time performance.

Jeffrey Fang, Keyi Shen, Anutam Srinivasan +1

Robust Control Optimal Control

Jul 1, 2026cs.RO

Enhancing Robustness in Robot-Environment Interactions through Passive Compliant Degrees of Freedom: A Hybrid Position-Force Control Approach with Feedback Linearization

Robot-environment interactions in dynamic or unstructured settings are often degraded by impact shocks, vibrations, and uncertainties in contact geometry and mechanical properties. This paper proposes an interaction architecture that combines feedback-linearized hybrid position-force control with a passive compliant degree of freedom embedded at the end-effector. Unlike conventional hybrid position-force control, which relies mainly on active feedback, force sensing, and gain tuning, the proposed architecture uses a physical spring-damper interface to store and dissipate impact energy at the contact point before high-frequency shocks propagate to the actuated joints and force-control loop. The approach is evaluated in MATLAB/Simulink on a 2-DOF planar manipulator with three end-effector configurations: rigid, spring-only, and spring-damper. Results under fixed and time-varying interaction conditions show that the spring-damper configuration provides stronger attenuation of contact-induced oscillations, lower force and velocity error variance, and smoother joint-torque response. Representative reductions include 36.5% in fixed-environment tangential force-error standard deviation, 25.4% in variable-environment normal force-error standard deviation, and 41.1% in variable-environment normal velocity-error standard deviation.

Rahman Ardakanian, Iman Kardan, AliAkbar Akbari +1

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran · Center of Advanced Rehabilitation and Robotics Research, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran · Department of Computer Engineering, Ne. C, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran

Robotic Control Robust Control Robotics Feedback Control Feedback Linearization Optimization

Jul 1, 2026cs.RO

Learning from Demonstration via Spatiotemporal Tubes for Unknown Euler-Lagrange Systems

We present STT-LfD, a unified Learning from Demonstration (LfD) framework that integrates motion learning with control for unknown Euler-Lagrange systems. Unlike traditional decoupled approaches that track a fixed reference, the proposed method treats demonstrations as a data-driven safety specification. Using heteroscedastic Gaussian Processes, STT-LfD learns Spatiotemporal Tubes (STTs) as an intent envelope that capture time-varying precision requirements of a task. A closed-form feedback controller then enforces these learned constraints while respecting actuator limits, without requiring explicit system identification. The approach preserves the temporal structure of demonstrations, remains computationally efficient, and avoids explicit system identification. Hardware experiments on a mobile robot and a 7-DOF manipulator show that it outperforms baselines in robustness to disturbances and computational speed.

Ratnangshu Das, Puneeth Shankar, Varuni Buereddy +2

Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber-Physical Systems IISc, Bengaluru, India

Robotic Control Robot Skill Learning Robust Control Learning from Demonstration

Jul 1, 2026cs.RO

Robust Operational Space Control with Conformal Disturbance Bounds for Safe Redundant Manipulation

Redundant robotic manipulators operating in constrained and human-interactive environments require accurate task-space tracking together with rigorous safety guarantees under dynamic uncertainties. Classical operational space computed torque controller (OSCTC) relies on accurate dynamic models and degrades in the presence of disturbances. In contrast, the data-driven paradigm of residual learning approximates disturbances as functions learned from full-state measurements, which are often noisy in practice, lack rigorous theoretical guarantees, and introduce additional design complexity. This paper proposes a robust OSCTC framework that integrates an extended state observer (ESO) with conformal prediction to combine model-based robustness and data-driven adaptability. The ESO estimates lumped disturbances directly in operational space without requiring full-state measurements as in residual learning, and a robust control barrier function (CBF) is constructed to enforce safety under uncertainty. However, robust CBFs require a known disturbance-variation bound to guarantee absolute safety, which often leads to conservatism in practice. To address this limitation, we further employ a sliding-window conformal prediction mechanism to estimate the bound online in a distribution-free manner, thereby achieving practical probabilistic safety guarantees. Experiments on a 7-DoF Franka Research 3 manipulator demonstrate millimeter-level tracking accuracy and real-time safe control at 1~kHz under various disturbances.

Wenhua Liu, Fan Zhang, Qin Lin

Department of Engineering Technology and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77004, USA.

Robotic Control Control Barrier Functions Robust Control Robotic Manipulation

Jun 29, 2026cs.RO

Lateral String Stability for Vehicle Platoons

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) platooning promises gains in energy efficiency and traffic throughput and, most critically, in safety. These safety benefits hinge on string stability, which determines how disturbances propagate along a platoon. While longitudinal string stability is well studied, lateral string stability, which governs the propagation of path-tracking errors that can lead to unsafe deviations from the intended path, remains underexplored. Its importance is increasing as autonomous vehicles rely more heavily on onboard sensing and map-free navigation, where sensor occlusion and dense formations amplify safety risks. This paper presents a new framework for lateral string stability that directly addresses safety-critical path-relative tracking errors and enables consistent comparison across vehicles following the same road geometry. Central to this framework is an arc-length (Eulerian) viewpoint, a departure from traditional analyses, that clarifies how tracking errors at a given point on the path propagate from one vehicle to the next. A formal definition of lateral string stability is introduced along with two control strategies: an onboard-sensing-only controller and a novel learn-from-predecessor approach utilizing vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. We show that onboard sensing alone cannot guarantee attenuation of path-tracking errors, imposing a fundamental safety limitation, whereas V2V communication enables true error attenuation.

Sixu Li, Swaroop Darbha, Yang Zhou

Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77483, USA

Robot Trajectory Tracking Intelligent Transportation Systems Robust Control

Jun 26, 2026cs.RO

Drifting in the Future: Stabilizing Path Following Drifting on High-Latency Vehicle Systems

Autonomously controlling and handling a vehicle at and beyond its stability limit is a mathematically and computationally demanding task. Prior demonstrations of automated drifting have been limited to research platforms with instantaneous torque delivery and independently actuated wheels, leaving their applicability to production vehicles with actuator latencies and mechanically coupled axles uncertain. To overcome these issues, we design a predictor to compensate for powertrain delays, develop a revised control formulation to accommodate higher actuation latencies as well as a differential coupling on the driven axle, and introduce brake-based velocity stabilization. This paper presents the controller framework, the model extensions, and real-world experimental results. We observe that our controller enables a production sports car with a combustion engine to robustly sustain circular and figure-eight drifts, limiting lateral error to 1.1 m and sideslip overshoot to 0.06 rad despite actuator delays exceeding 250 ms, while mitigating oscillations and maintaining stable path and sideslip tracking. In conclusion, our results establish that autonomous drifting is feasible on production-ready vehicles, opening pathways to advanced safety systems capable of stabilizing cars in scenarios where traditional control fails.

Frederik Werner, Till Heintzenberg, Markus Lienkamp +1

Professorship of Autonomous Vehicle Systems, TUM School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, 85748 Garching, Germany; Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI)

Robot Trajectory Tracking Autonomous Driving Robust Control Vehicle Dynamics Feedback Control

Jun 25, 2026eess.SY

Resilient Output Containment under Undisclosed Leader Dynamics and Actuator Attacks

This work studies resilient output containment for heterogeneous linear multi-agent systems with actuator cyber-attacks over directed network topologies. The leaders generate bounded locally absolutely continuous trajectories; however, their dynamics, velocity bounds, and motion envelopes are undisclosed to the followers. The cyber-attack model includes state- and input-correlated, as well as bounded exogenous actuator false-data terms. A continuous two-layer adaptive control architecture is proposed. The first layer is a virtual-actuator reconfiguration layer that uses partial state measurements to compensate for actuator attacks in the local tracking-error dynamics. The second layer is a network interface that generates task-space commands via an adaptive interaction protocol. This protocol uses only neighbor-exchanged network-interface states whose dimensions match those of the plant output, and it does not require global graph knowledge for parameter tuning. For directed graphs, under a leader-rooted united spanning-tree condition, a nonsmooth Lyapunov analysis yields asymptotic containment at the command level. The physical outputs then converge to the leader convex hull up to a residual determined by the command-tracking local controllers. Simulation results using a network of quadrotors with damped suspended loads illustrate the performance of attack recovery and containment tracking.

Mohammadreza Nematollahi, Khashayar Khorasani, Nader Meskin

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. · Department of Electrical Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar.

Cyber-Physical Systems Multi-Agent Control Robust Control Multi-Agent System Security Adaptive Control

Jun 24, 2026cs.RO

Layered Outer-Loop Control for Disturbance-Robust Multi-Waypoint UAV Arrival

Disturbance-robust UAV position control is easy to demonstrate in benign simulations but much harder to make fast in approach, well behaved near the target, and credible beyond a single benchmark. This letter presents a layered terminal-control architecture for multi-waypoint UAV position regulation together with a staged evaluation across PyBullet, PX4/Gazebo, and hardware. Phase I uses a PyBullet benchmark with stochastic wind for rapid structural selection, identifying a controller core that separates smooth approach generation, persistent-bias compensation, and supervised near-target terminal regulation. Phase II carries only that main architecture into a more demanding PX4/Gazebo closed loop, where the outer-loop controller acts through a cascaded flight stack with delay-sensitive settling and stronger transit-to-hover coupling. This step exposes which benchmark gains survive autopilot-mediated dynamics and which refinements collapse once the loop becomes more deployment-like. In Phase I, the bare controller attains 0.024 m mean late-stage wind error. In Phase II, the final controller is selected using a transfer-oriented rule emphasizing absence of benchmark priors, cross-scenario balance, and deployable supervisory logic. Strict is used as the primary reporting reference; the supplementary retrospective Grace analysis shows that part of the residual failure set is sensitive to completion semantics rather than gross waypoint-miss behaviour. The evaluation is completed on one Vicon-tracked Tello stack through a two-level hardware study. Taken together, the results suggest that benchmark success becomes more informative when the main controller design is separated from benchmark-specific refinement and remains defensible under harder closed-loop evaluation.

Runfeng Ling

Runfeng Ling is with The University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K.

Robot Navigation UAV Navigation Robust Control Quadrotor Control

Jun 24, 2026eess.SY

Robustness and Leadership in Markov-switching Consensus Networks

We investigate how time-varying interactions, modeled via a Markov switching graph (MSG), impact the robustness of noisy multi-agent dynamics in both continuous- and discrete-time settings. Our focus is on the steady-state performance of consensus and leader-follower tracking dynamics subject to stochastic noise. Using the framework of Markov jump linear systems (MJLS), we derive expressions for the steady-state covariance of each agent's deviation from consensus and tracking error, respectively, and use them to quantify individual and group performance as a function of the interaction graphs and the switching dynamics. We extend established notions of robustness, certainty indices, and joint centrality from static graphs to the MSG setting. To gain analytical insight, we specialize our results to systems switching between two topologies and characterize how switching influences performance. Numerical simulations further illustrate how switching topologies affects system robustness in both coordination tasks.

Sarah H. Cen, Vaibhav Srivastava, Naomi Ehrich Leonard

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA · Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA

Multi-Agent Coordination Regime-Switching Dynamical Systems Robust Control Multi-Agent Systems Multi-Agent Consensus

Jun 24, 2026cs.RO

Learning to Adapt: Reptile-D-Learning for Robust and Efficient Control Under Parametric Uncertainty

Learning-based Lyapunov Control (LLC) provides formal stability guarantees for nonlinear systems, but its validity relies heavily on accurate system models. Parameter variations and uncertainties may invalidate stability constraints, leading to costly retraining. Although D-learning can estimate Lyapunov derivatives without relying on explicit dynamics models, it remains limited by single-task dynamics and degrades under large parameter shifts. We propose Reptile-D-learning, a framework that leverages the Reptile meta-learning algorithm to capture shared dynamical structures across systems with different parameters, thereby learning a generalizable Lyapunov network initialization and a high-performance controller. Experiments on multiple nonlinear control systems demonstrate that Reptile-D-learning significantly improves both generalization and rapid adaptation to unseen parameter configurations.

Haipeng Cao, Zhaolong Shen, Quan Quan

School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P.R. China

Lyapunov-Based Control Robust Control Adaptive Control

Jun 24, 2026cs.AI

What Actually Works for Spacecraft Fault-Tolerant Control: An Honest Settled-Gate Benchmark of Learned and Classical Methods

Recent learned fault-tolerant-control (FTC) work reports high success on spacecraft actuator faults, but often in simulation, on narrow fault sets, and with transient metrics that a trajectory need only touch once. We ask what recovers spacecraft pointing when success means holding it on faults never seen in training. We answer with a benchmark built around a settled gate, pointing held within 0.2 deg over a dwell window and scored on the true state, train/test splits disjoint in inertia, gain, sign pattern, and bias, Wilson intervals over n=500 episodes per cell, and one-command reproduction on a 6-DOF Basilisk testbed. Across classical, adaptive, learned end-to-end, and structured controllers, three findings stand out. Fault-unaware PD/PID and from-scratch end-to-end RL score 0%, so learning capacity alone is not the lever. Classical adaptive laws resolve sign faults but handle gain poorly at 55.2%, and a literature-faithful Nussbaum-gain law reaches 45.2% and 3.2%. A structured estimate-then-control design, with a learned recurrent module that infers actuator gain online and feeds an analytic law, wins on sign and gain faults at 97.8% and 94.4%, approaching the privileged oracle while unstructured methods remain at zero. The hard wall is constant additive bias, which is 0% for every controller including the privileged gain oracle, because an integral-free law cannot null a constant disturbance. We close it with a disturbance observer that recovers bias from the dynamics and is self-correcting for gain-estimate error. Composed with the gain estimate, it recovers 59.4% of held-out bias faults with no sign/gain regression, moving that class off zero. We classify sensor-fault regimes similarly, show that sensor bias is unobservable from the corrupted measurement alone and therefore requires fusion rather than an observer, and release the benchmark so the gate is shared.

Alireza Shojaei

Myers-Lawson School of Construction, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA

Safety-Critical Control Robust Control Fault-Tolerant Control Feedback Control Adaptive Control

Jun 22, 2026cs.RO

Topological Online Learning for Displacement-based Formation Control

This paper addresses the problem of robust formation control by introducing Topological Online Learning for Displacement-based (TOLD) formation control, a real-time edge-level adaptation framework. Unlike conventional node-level robust controllers that regulate individual robot inputs without modifying the interaction topology, TOLD updates the interaction topology weights online to directly minimize formation distortion. Two strategies are proposed under the TOLD formation control framework: Online Gradient Flow (OGF) with unconstrained weights and Online Exponential Gradient Flow (OExpGF) with non-negative convex weights. Theoretical analysis establishes that, for single-integrator agents over directed graphs, OExpGF guarantees asymptotic consensus, while OGF ensures bounded formation distortion. Simulations with twelve robots under intermittent disturbances show 1.2%-33.14% median cumulative Root Mean Distortion Error reduction when augmenting TOLD with node-level controllers. Hardware experiments with Crazyflie 2.0 quadrotors demonstrate over 62% (OGF) and 31.4% (OExpGF) reduction in median formation distortion compared to fixed-weight consensus.

Saksham Sharma, Shubhankar Gupta, Sumant A Gunagi +1

ArtGarage, Indian Institute of Science, India · Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, India

Multi-Robot Formation Control Robust Control Multi-Robot Coordination Adaptive Control

Jun 18, 2026cs.RO

Stable Transformer-Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control: A Contraction Analysis Approach

Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control (MPC) effectively addresses complex, non-convex control problems, but guaranteeing the closed-loop stability of sequence-based learning models within these pipelines remains challenging. This paper introduces a novel Transformer-Actor-Critic MPC architecture with formal robustness guarantees. First, we prove that Transformer networks can satisfy global incremental Input-to-State Stability (

δ

ISS). We then leverage Riemannian contraction theory to analyze the interconnected dynamics between the physical plant and the predictive neural network. Finally, we integrate these theoretical bounds as a training regularizer to yield a certifiably robust policy. The framework is validated on a nonlinear 3D drone model executing target-reaching and obstacle-avoidance maneuvers.

Antonio Marino, Valerio Modugno, Marco Cognetti

CAM · University of Cambridge · UCL +3

Dynamical Systems Nonlinear MPC Robust Control

Jun 17, 2026cs.RO

Safe, Real-Time Active Model Discrimination and Fault Diagnosis for Nonlinear Systems via Differentiable Reachability

We present a safe, real-time algorithm for active fault diagnosis and model discrimination for uncertain continuous-time nonlinear systems with process and measurement disturbances. Given a finite set of candidate models representing nominal and faulty modes, including actuator and sensor faults, we formulate an output-feedback, time-varying policy optimization problem that (i) robustly enforces state-input safety constraints over a finite horizon and (ii) drives the system to produce sampled measurements consistent with at most one model, enabling deterministic diagnosis. To solve this problem in real time, we develop a tractable approximation using interval over-approximations of reachable state and output sets, and encode diagnosability via a differentiable objective that penalizes overlap between the reachable output sets of possible models. The resulting optimization is solved efficiently online with gradient-based methods using JAX and differentiable reachability primitives. We evaluate our method on sensor and actuator fault diagnosis (up to 11 fault modes) in several high-dimensional nonlinear robotic systems, including a simulated quadrotor and fighter-jet model, a hardware differential-drive robot, and quadrupedal navigation. Across these case studies, our approach achieves reliable model discrimination in under 50 ms, outperforming baselines in discrimination success rate and speed while providing formal safety guarantees.

Xinpei Ni, Melkior Ornik, Glen Chou +1

Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM), Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA · Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Robot Failure Detection Robust Control Fault Diagnosis

Jun 15, 2026eess.SY

Data-driven Control with Real-time Uncertainty Compensation for Multi-Fuel Engines

Multi-fuel compression ignition (CI) engines offer superior power density and fuel flexibility. However, achieving consistent and optimal combustion phasing across a wide range of operating conditions remains a major challenge, particularly in the presence of modeling uncertainties. This paper presents a novel, data-driven real-time uncertainty compensation framework for combustion control in multi-fuel CI engines. The proposed approach introduces a pseudo-engine speed that enables dynamic adaptation of control inputs in response to uncertainty affecting the engine. To model the underlying combustion process, a Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) model is first trained on available input-output data, capturing the nonlinear and fuel-dependent behavior across varying operating conditions. Control inputs are then synthesized through model inversion of the learned GPR surrogate and augmented with an uncertainty compensator designed to mitigate deviations caused by dynamic variations in operating conditions and model inaccuracies. This integrated control strategy allows for real-time input corrections within a finite number of combustion cycles. Theoretical analysis establishes finite-time convergence guarantees for the proposed controller. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method steers the combustion phasing to the desired value in real-time, providing a scalable and adaptive control solution for multi-fuel CI engine operation.

Rajasree Sarkar, Arunava Banerjee, Sathya Aswath Govind Raju +4

aDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. · bDEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, USA, 21005.

Robust Control Feedback Control Adaptive Control

Jun 14, 2026eess.SY

Anisotropic Template Ansätze for Robust Positive Invariance under State-Dependent Uncertainty

We establish sufficient conditions for robust positive invariance under state- and input-dependent disturbances with anisotropic covariance structure. The proposed ansatz maps a fixed ellipsoidal template through a GP-derived positive-definite matrix field, subsuming scalar homothetic scaling while retaining finite graph-based verification. The resulting LMI conditions couple the learned field to Schur-stable dynamics; an isotropic fallback with inflation factor

r=1/(1-γ_{\mathrm{cl}})

proves admissibility. During each learning epoch the field is frozen, so online tube evaluation is one GP covariance query and a small matrix square root, with no online set iteration or LMI solve. Quadrotor simulations show a

195\times

reduction in 3D velocity-tube volume and a

2.1{\times}10^5

reduction in the joint 7D velocity-control subspace relative to a non-adaptive homothetic baseline. This extended version adds full proofs, a separated offline/online complexity analysis, and controller-sweep, contraction, and projection-area studies.

Abdelrahman Ramadan, Melissa Greeff, Sidney Givigi

Electrical and Computer Engineering, Smith Engineering, and with Ingenuity Labs Research Institute, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada

Jun 13, 2026eess.SY

Robust Conformal CBF and CLF Controllers via Iterative Policy Updates

Conformal prediction (CP) has been used to obtain probabilistic bounds on the error between a learned dynamics model and the true but unknown system. Such CP bounds can then be embedded into robust control Lyapunov function (CLF) and control barrier function (CBF) frameworks. However, such an approach does not retain stability/safety guarantees because of the distribution shift between the closed-loop trajectory distribution under the deployed CLF/CBF policy and the trajectory distribution from which the CP bound and its guarantees were derived. To address this issue, we propose an episodic framework that iteratively updates the robust conformal CLF/CBF policy while maintaining stability/safety guarantees across episodes. We achieve this by (1) using adversarially robust conformal prediction, and (2) quantifying a distribution shift budget that allows us to control how much the model error can increase across policy updates. This distribution shift budget is derived via a closed-loop trajectory sensitivity analysis, yielding an implicit and an explicit update rule for the CP bound. We analyze convergence of our algorithm, which we demonstrate on three case studies. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first results that provide stability/safety guarantees for robust conformal CBF/CLF policies.

Omid Mirzaeedodangeh, Eliot Shekhtman, Nikolai Matni +1

1Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zürich, Switzerland. · 2Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, USA. · 3Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Distribution Shift Robustness Lyapunov-Based Control Control Barrier Functions Conformal Prediction Robust Control

Jun 12, 2026cs.RO

Contact-Consistent Interaction Dynamics Normalization for Predictive Physical Human--Robot Interaction

Safe physical human--robot interaction on floating-base robots requires interaction regulation under changing contact constraints. We develop a contact-consistent normalization in which the residual end-effector channel is represented as a linear double integrator in acceleration coordinates. Both discrete prediction matrices are independent of configuration and support mode; posture and contact enter only through task-inertia force recovery and constraints. The controller combines a constant-Hessian receding-horizon QP, an acceleration-disturbance observer, and a priority-consistent realization. Classical operational-space impedance is shown to be the unconstrained infinite-horizon limit. MuJoCo experiments on a 17-DOF biped and a Menagerie-derived Unitree G1 model evaluate sustained forces, transmitted shocks, and scheduled contact-model changes. The observer sustains near-offset-free tracking across a genuine contact-set switch and a scheduled support-mode transition, while disturbance estimation---not contact consistency alone---is the dominant source of fixed-stance accuracy; covariance inflation gives only scenario-dependent transient benefit.

Yongyan Cao

Voryx Robotics, San Jose, CA 95136, USA

Robotic Control Robust Control Whole-Body Control Impedance Control Model Predictive Control Human-Robot Interaction

Jun 12, 2026cs.RO

Interaction Dynamics for Dexterous Manipulation

Dexterous manipulation is fundamentally a problem of interaction dynamics: the hand must track precise finger trajectories, regulate the contact force exchanged with grasped objects, respect actuation and safety limits, and remain predictable when contact persists -- objectives in tension for any fixed-gain controller. A sustained contact torque

τ_{\text{ext}}

through a joint stiffness

K_d

produces the structural bias

e_\infty=τ_{\text{ext}}/K_d

, so stiffening for accuracy sacrifices contact safety while softening yields by design. We make these interaction dynamics explicit and actuator-agnostic through a constant-

A_d

double-integrator backbone, instantiating the offset-free architecture established for physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) and preserving its modeling assumptions on the reduced residual dynamics. An algebraic feedforward reduces the tendon transmission -- hydraulic, cable, pneumatic, twisted-string, or series-elastic -- to a constant-coefficient double integrator, so the QP cost inverse is precomputed offline and a 10-step receding-horizon QP runs at 500,Hz under contact-force (ISO/TS 15066), actuation, and jerk constraints. An encoder-only augmented-Kalman disturbance state drives steady-state error to zero under constant contact loads in the nominal detectable case. In simulation, a hydraulically actuated finger -- the worked example, adding pressure and cavitation constraints -- attains 0.6,mrad RMS, 0.1,mrad steady-state, and 7.3,mrad peak deflection under 1.5,Nm contact: 153

\times

, 1500

\times

, and 21

\times

better than classical impedance. The realized first-move stiffness (18

\to

323,Nm/rad with update rate) is independently verified, and the architecture scales to a 16-DOF LEAP Hand MuJoCo model, recovering from 2.5,N grasp disturbances within 0.7,s.

Yongyan Cao

Y. Cao is with Voryx Robotic LLC, San Jose, CA 95136, USA

Dexterous Manipulation Contact-Rich Robotic Manipulation Robust Control Robotic Manipulation Force-Controlled Robotic Manipulation Dynamic Robotic Manipulation

Jun 10, 2026eess.SY

Model-Based and Data-Driven Hierarchical Control and Topology Co-Design for Robust Networked Systems

In this paper, we consider a class of networked systems comprising an interconnected set of linear subsystems, disturbance inputs, and performance outputs. Using dissipativity theory, we first propose a model-based hierarchical control design strategy to ensure the closed-loop networked system is dissipative from its disturbance inputs to performance outputs. This involves designing local controllers for each subsystem to enforce local dissipativity guarantees, which are then exploited to co-design distributed global controllers and the interconnection topology to enforce global dissipativity guarantees while optimizing interconnection topology costs. The overall design process requires only solving a sequence of linear matrix inequality (LMI) problems, thereby retaining compositionality and decentralizability while avoiding non-convex, iterative design processes that are inefficient and centralized. This model-based hierarchical control design strategy assumes the knowledge of the subsystem dynamics, which may not hold in many real-world networked systems. Motivated by this, we also propose a data-driven hierarchical control design strategy that assumes only the availability of rich input-state-output trajectory data from the subsystems. The proposed data-driven design process assumes that the unknown disturbances affecting the subsystem dynamics are bounded by a quadratic matrix inequality (relaxing conventional bounds) and accounts for this by using the matrix S-lemma. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed model-based and data-driven hierarchical control designs is illustrated for a networked system representing a DC microgrid, with the aim of enforcing robust (dissipative) voltage regulation and current sharing.

Shirantha Welikala, Zihao Song, Hai Lin +1

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Science, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030 · Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA

Dynamical Systems Robust Control Data-Driven Control Feedback Control

Jun 9, 2026cs.RO

Learning Control as Enabling Layer for Embodied Intelligence Research explored with Soft Robotic Swimming in diverse Flow Speeds

Soft robots are valuable robophysical platforms for studying body-caudal undulatory locomotion, but their compliant bodies are difficult to control precisely under changing hydrodynamic loading. Conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) feedback stabilizes periodic undulation in static water, but can accumulate flow-dependent tracking delay and increasing inter-trial variability when environmental flow becomes non-trivial. Here, we evaluate whether augmenting PID control with a Linear Repetitive Learning Estimation Scheme (PID-LRLES) recovers tracking accuracy and repeatability under dynamic flow. The LRLES generalizes classical integral action from constant to periodic, non-constant references, while using a stable transfer-function realization whose poles have negative real parts to avoid the long-term instability issues of classical repetitive control. Closed-loop experiments were carried out in a recirculating flow tank at five bulk flow speeds spanning 0 to 32.6 cm s^-1, using an embedded soft capacitive bending sensor at a 1 kHz control-loop rate. With controller gains tuned once in static water and then held fixed across all conditions, PID-LRLES tracked the periodic bending-envelope reference more closely than the PID baseline and significantly reduced the inter-trial spread of the per-trial RMSE (paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p = 1.8 x 10^-4, n = 25). Embedded soft proprioception and cycle-to-cycle learning act as complementary contributors to robustness: the sensor exposes the periodic hydrodynamic bias in body deformation, while the learning term absorbs it over recent oscillation cycles. By reducing flow-dependent control-induced variability, the approach provides an enabling layer for future robophysical studies seeking to isolate the effects of morphology, sensing, and environmental flow on aquatic locomotion.

Fabian Schwab, Federico Allione, Bingcheng Wang +5

1Engineering Sciences Department, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland · Institute for NeuroInformatics, University of Zurich, Switzerland · Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy

Robotic Control Robust Control Robot Locomotion Soft Robotics

Jun 7, 2026eess.SY

Hybrid Neural Network and Conventional Controller Approach for Robust Control of Highly Unstable Systems: Application to Tilt-Rotor Control

Multirotors are widely used in applications ranging from surveillance to precision agriculture, yet conventional designs remain limited by their under-actuation. Tilt-rotor configurations overcome this limitation by enabling full actuation. This paper investigates neural-network-based control strategies for a fully actuated tilt-rotor system with four thrust-vectoring inputs. Our work is structured in two parts. First, we deliberately present a negative result by evaluating a direct input-output control approach. In this method, multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, and transformer models are trained to map system states and their desired values directly to control signals. We show that this strategy fails to stabilize the system, highlighting the inherent difficulty of applying direct input-output learning to highly unstable plants. Second, as the main contribution, we propose a neural-network-enhanced sliding mode controller (SMC). The method decomposes the system dynamics into input-independent and input-dependent components, with the former learned from a small dataset using lightweight networks, thereby reducing real-time computational demands. Moreover, the proposed method can be trained using flight logs collected from low-performance controllers, and the resulting dynamic model learned from real-world data can be used in simulation. We further compare MLP- and LSTM-based implementations under model uncertainties and external disturbances, demonstrating the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed approach; in particular, the controller with the LSTM plant dynamics predictor achieves superior performance to its MLP-based counterpart while also exhibiting lower runtime.

Ali Kafili Gavgani, Amin Talaeizadeh, Aria Alasty +1

Advanced Research Lab for Control and Agricultural Robotics (Sharif AgRoLab) Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Robust Control Feedback Control Sliding Mode Control

Jun 4, 2026cs.RO

Preserving Full 6-DOF Actuation Under Abrupt Total Rotor Failures: Passive Fault-Tolerant Flight Control Using a Biaxial-Tilt Hexacopter

Abrupt total rotor failures can invalidate nominal allocation despite remaining wrench capability. This paper develops an allocator-layer passive fault-tolerant control (AL-PFTC) scheme for overactuated vector-thrust aerial vehicles. Analysis of convexified attainable force and torque spaces at horizontal hover compares biaxial- and uniaxial-tilt configurations and screens fault cases using prescribed reserve thresholds. Instantaneous wrench loss relative to these reserves characterizes the initial redistribution burden. AL-PFTC adapts the allocation matrix using a virtual error derived from filtered wrench commands and an onboard external wrench estimate, with adaptive parameter bounds constructed from right inverses. Joint analysis including estimator residuals and filter dynamics establishes local uniform ultimate boundedness for position and attitude regulation under the stated conditions. Controller-layer passive fault-tolerant control (CL-PFTC) provides a reference with nominal allocation and observer compensation. Both share a nominal tracking baseline and run at 600 Hz on an STM32H753 without explicit fault identification, fault-mode switching, or online optimization. Comparisons show that AL-PFTC satisfies the recovery criterion in more tested hovering cases than CL-PFTC. Additional experiments using only onboard sensing, including indoor tracking under wind disturbance, outdoor tracking under wind and low-temperature conditions, narrow-frame traversal, and contact-based aerial writing, further validate the robustness of AL-PFTC in complex operational environments.

Yipeng Yang, Yiqiao Tang, Hao Zhang +6

Aerial Robotics Robot Failure Recovery Robust Control Fault-Tolerant Control Adaptive Control

May 31, 2026cs.RO

Robust Integrated Planning and Control for Quadrotors in Dynamic Environments via NMPC with CBF Penalties

This paper presents a new robust integrated planning and control (IPC) strategy for multirotor uncrewed aerial vehicles. We propose a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) formulation that embeds control barrier functions (CBFs) as exponential penalties, improving feasibility while ensuring smooth obstacle avoidance under tight input bounds. The penalty weights provide a practical tuning knob to trade off tracking accuracy against avoidance aggressiveness. We enhance the system robustness by employing a high-gain disturbance observer (HGDO) to estimate and compensate for external disturbances. We also incorporate a Kalman filter (KF) for computationally efficient, real-time prediction of obstacle motion, enabling avoidance of moving obstacles. Comparative studies against both conventional NMPC and NMPC with hard CBF constraints, validated in Gazebo and hardware experiments, demonstrate superior feasibility, safety, and robustness. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first hardware-validated NMPC-CBF IPC framework, offering a practical step toward safe quadrotor deployment in dynamic environments.

Zeinab Shayan, Mohammadreza Izadi, Reza Faieghi

Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada.

Nonlinear MPC Control Barrier Functions Robust Control Quadrotor Control Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance

May 27, 2026cs.RO

Safety-Critical Adaptive Impedance Control via Nonsmooth Control Barrier Functions under State and Input Constraints

Safe physical interaction is critical for deploying robotic manipulators in human-robot interaction and contact-rich tasks, where uncertainty, external forces, and actuator limitations can compromise both performance and safety. We propose an online adaptive impedance control framework that enforces joint-state safety while achieving compliant interaction under uncertain dynamics. The approach combines a quadratic-program-based safety filter with a novel composed position-velocity non-smooth control barrier function (NCBF), enabling joint position and velocity constraints to be enforced through a unified relative-degree-one barrier. Unknown dynamics are compensated online using an interval type-2 fuzzy logic system, while actuator torque limits are handled through soft constraints with exact penalty recovery of feasible solutions. A disturbance-observer-enhanced safety mechanism improves robustness against modelling errors and external interaction forces. Using composite Lyapunov analysis, we prove forward invariance of the safe set and the uniform ultimately boundedness of the impedance-tracking error. Simulations on a 7-DOF manipulator with severe parametric uncertainty and external interaction wrenches demonstrate safe constraint satisfaction and robust impedance tracking.

Faisal Lawan, Xiaoran Han, Joaquin Carrasco +2

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

Control Barrier Functions Robust Control Impedance Control Adaptive Control

May 25, 2026cs.RO

Safety-Critical Whole-Body Control for Humanoid Robots via Input-to-State Safe Control Barrier Functions

Safety-critical control is essential for humanoid robots operating in complex human-centered environments, where physical safety constraints such as joint limits, self-collision avoidance, obstacle avoidance, and workspace boundaries must be satisfied during real-robot operation. However, existing approaches remain limited because kinematic safety guarantees can be degraded in the presence of unknown disturbances, such as model uncertainties, trajectory-tracking errors, and external perturbations. This paper presents a hierarchical safety-critical whole-body control framework for humanoid robots based on input-to-state safe control barrier functions (ISSf-CBFs). The proposed architecture integrates a kinematic-level whole-body controller (KinWBC), an ISSf-CBF safety filter, and a dynamic-level whole-body controller (DynWBC). KinWBC generates nominal joint-motion references from prioritized tasks; the ISSf-CBF filter minimally modifies these references to satisfy kinematic safety constraints under bounded disturbances; and DynWBC tracks the filtered references while enforcing full-body dynamic feasibility and contact stability. Safety constraints are imposed on a whole-body kinematic model, and the ISSf-CBF parameters are conservatively tuned so that the resulting kinematic safety guarantees can be transferred to full-order humanoid dynamics under unknown disturbances. Simulation and real-robot experiments demonstrate that the proposed framework improves safety margins under model mismatch and reliably enforces multiple safety constraints in real time during locomotion, teleoperation, and single-leg balancing with hand control. Project website: https://kwlee365.github.io/SafeWBC-Website/

Kwanwoo Lee, Sanghyuk Park, Gyeongjae Park +2

Department of Intelligence and Information, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea · Robotics Lab, Hyundai Motor Group, Republic of Korea · Advanced Institute of Convergence Technology, Republic of Korea +1

Safety-Critical Control Control Barrier Functions Humanoid Robot Control Robust Control Whole-Body Control Robot Safety