Hendrik Schäfke | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Neural Network-Based Virtual Wheel-Speed Sensor for Enhanced Low-Velocity State Estimation

Accurate wheel speed information is crucial for vehicle control and state estimation. Conventional sensors suffer from quantization and latency, especially at low velocities, while motor-speed signals in electric vehicles are distorted by drivetrain torsion. This work presents a neural-network-based virtual wheel-speed sensor that fuses wheel-speed and motor-speed signals to reduce errors from both sources. Validated on real-world Volkswagen ID.7 data, the real-time capable model achieves an error reduction of up to 85% compared to the production sensor and 47% compared to an optimized zero-phase filter, providing a smooth signal for driver-assistance functions. The results demonstrate robust generalization across diverse real-world maneuvers within the vehicle platform.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2024

Learning-based Nonlinear Model Predictive Control of Articulated Soft Robots using Recurrent Neural Networks

Soft robots pose difficulties in terms of control, requiring novel strategies to effectively manipulate their compliant structures. Model-based approaches face challenges due to the high dimensionality and nonlinearities such as hysteresis effects. In contrast, learning-based approaches provide nonlinear models of different soft robots based only on measured data. In this paper, recurrent neural networks (RNNs) predict the behavior of an articulated soft robot (ASR) with five degrees of freedom (DoF). RNNs based on gated recurrent units (GRUs) are compared to the more commonly used long short-term memory (LSTM) networks and show better accuracy. The recurrence enables the capture of hysteresis effects that are inherent in soft robots due to viscoelasticity or friction but cannot be captured by simple feedforward networks. The data-driven model is used within a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC), whereby the correct handling of the RNN's hidden states is focused. A training approach is presented that allows measured values to be utilized in each control cycle. This enables accurate predictions of short horizons based on sensor data, which is crucial for closed-loop NMPC. The proposed learning-based NMPC enables trajectory tracking with an average error of 1.2deg in experiments with the pneumatic five-DoF ASR.

cs.RO↗