Real-Time Generation of Near Minimum-Energy Trajectories via Constraint-Informed Residual Learning

A Paradigm for Learning From Optimal Solutions

Journal Article (2026)
Author(s)

Domenico Dona (Università degli Studi di Padova)

Giovanni Franzese (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)

Cosimo Della Santina (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)

Paolo Boscariol (Università degli Studi di Padova)

Basilio Lenzo (Università degli Studi di Padova)

Research Group
Learning & Autonomous Control
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2025.3642672 Final published version
More Info
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Publication Year
2026
Language
English
Research Group
Learning & Autonomous Control
Journal title
IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
Issue number
1
Volume number
33
Pages (from-to)
142-150
Page Views
64
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Abstract

Industrial robotics demands significant energy to operate, making energy-reduction methodologies increasingly important. Strategies for planning minimum-energy trajectories typically involve solving nonlinear optimal control problems (OCPs), which rarely cope with real-time (RT) requirements. In this article, we propose a paradigm for generating near minimum-energy trajectories for manipulators by learning from optimal solutions. Our paradigm leverages a residual learning approach, which embeds boundary conditions (BCs) while focusing on learning only the adjustments needed to steer a standard solution to an optimal one. Compared to a computationally expensive OCP-based planner, our paradigm achieves 87.3% of the performance near the training dataset and 50.8% far from the dataset, while being two to three orders-of-magnitude faster.

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