Numerical simulation of complex physical phenomena is a core enabling technology for digital twins, which are comprised of physical and virtual assets with a two-way flow of information: data from the physical asset is used to construct and/or calibrate the virtual asset (a numerical model), while numerical predictions from the virtual asset are used for control or decision-making for the physical asset [42]. To be viable for practical application, the virtual asset must be able to produce predictions rapidly and reliably; however, the underlying physics that are of interest for digital twin applications can typically only be accurately simulated using a large number of degrees of freedom, leading to computationally expensive numerical simulations. The explainability and computational efficiency of decisions made by the digital twin play a key role in safety-critical applications, making explainable artificial intelligence an essential ingredient [24]. Model reduction techniques are one such explainable scientific machine learning technique that construct low-dimensional systems, called reduced-order models (ROMs), to serve as computationally inexpensive surrogates for a high-dimensional physics simulation [4, 20]. This paper introduces a technique for adaptively constructing ROMs to emulate systems with parametric dependence, that is, systems whose behavior varies with some set of parameters, usually representing physical properties. We focus on systems where the parametric dependence manifests in the operators defining the model, not merely in initial conditions or external inputs.

Partial differential equations (PDEs) are an essential modeling tool in engineering and physical sciences. The numerical methods used for solving the more descriptive and sophisticated of these models comprise many computationally expensive modules. Machine learning (ML) provides a way of replacing some of these modules by surrogates that are much more efficient at the time of inference. The resulting PDE-ML coupled systems, however, can be highly susceptible to instabilities [1-3]. Efforts towards ameliorating these have mostly concentrated on improving the accuracy of the surrogates, imbuing them with additional structure, or introducing problem-specific stabilizers, and have garnered limited success [4-7]. In this article, we study a prototype problem to understand the mathematical subtleties involved in PDE-ML coupling, and draw insights that can help with more complex systems.

This paper extends the forced-oscillation-based reduced-order model of walking to a model with ankles and feet. A human-inspired paradigm was designed for the ankle dynamics, which results in improved gait characteristics compared to the point-foot model. In addition, it was shown that while the proposed model can stabilize against large errors in initial conditions through combination of foot placement and ankle strategies, the model is able to stabilize against small perturbations without relying on the foot placement control and solely through the designed proprioceptive ankle scheme. This novel property, which is also observed in humans, can help in better understanding of anthropomorphic walking and its stabilization mechanisms.

Reduced-order models (ROMs) provide a powerful means of synthesizing dynamic walking gaits on legged robots. Yet this approach lacks the formal guarantees enjoyed by methods that utilize the full-order model (FOM) for gait synthesis, e.g., hybrid zero dynamics. This paper aims to unify these approaches through a layered control perspective. In particular, we establish conditions on when a ROM of locomotion yields stable walking on the full-order hybrid dynamics. To achieve this result, given an ROM we synthesize a zero dynamics manifold encoding the behavior of the ROM -- controllers can be synthesized that drive the FOM to this surface, yielding hybrid zero dynamics. We prove that a stable periodic orbit in the ROM implies an input-to-state stable periodic orbit of the FOM's hybrid zero dynamics, and hence the FOM dynamics. This result is demonstrated in simulation on a linear inverted pendulum ROM and a 5-link planar walking FOM.

This paper presents a data-driven, nested Operator Inference (OpInf) approach for learning physics-informed reduced-order models (ROMs) from snapshot data of high-dimensional dynamical systems. The approach exploits the inherent hierarchy within the reduced space to iteratively construct initial guesses for the OpInf learning problem that prioritize the interactions of the dominant modes. The initial guess computed for any target reduced dimension corresponds to a ROM with provably smaller or equal snapshot reconstruction error than with standard OpInf. Moreover, our nested OpInf algorithm can be warm-started from previously learned models, enabling versatile application scenarios involving dynamic basis and model form updates. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithm on a cubic heat conduction problem, with nested OpInf achieving a four times smaller error than standard OpInf at a comparable offline time. Further, we apply nested OpInf to a large-scale, parameterized model of the Greenland ice sheet where, despite model form approximation errors, it learns a ROM with, on average, 3% error and computational speed-up factor above 19,000.

Robot learning has produced remarkably effective ``black-box'' controllers for complex tasks such as dynamic locomotion on humanoids. Yet ensuring dynamic safety, i.e., constraint satisfaction, remains challenging for such policies. Reinforcement learning (RL) embeds constraints heuristically through reward engineering, and adding or modifying constraints requires retraining. Model-based approaches, like control barrier functions (CBFs), enable runtime constraint specification with formal guarantees but require accurate dynamics models. This paper presents SHIELD, a layered safety framework that bridges this gap by: (1) training a generative, stochastic dynamics residual model using real-world data from hardware rollouts of the nominal controller, capturing system behavior and uncertainties; and (2) adding a safety layer on top of the nominal (learned locomotion) controller that leverages this model via a stochastic discrete-time CBF formulation enforcing safety constraints in probability. The result is a minimally-invasive safety layer that can be added to the existing autonomy stack to give probabilistic guarantees of safety that balance risk and performance. In hardware experiments on an Unitree G1 humanoid, SHIELD enables safe navigation (obstacle avoidance) through varied indoor and outdoor environments using a nominal (unknown) RL controller and onboard perception.

Modern autopilot systems are prone to sensor attacks that can jeopardize flight safety. To mitigate this risk, we proposed a modular solution: the secure safety filter, which extends the well-established control barrier function (CBF)-based safety filter to account for, and mitigate, sensor attacks. This module consists of a secure state reconstructor (which generates plausible states) and a safety filter (which computes the safe control input that is closest to the nominal one). Differing from existing work focusing on linear, noise-free systems, the proposed secure safety filter handles bounded measurement noise and, by leveraging reduced-order model techniques, is applicable to the nonlinear dynamics of drones. Software-in-the-loop simulations and drone hardware experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the secure safety filter in rendering the system safe in the presence of sensor attacks.

Abstract-- This paper presents an optimization-based motion planning methodology for snake robots operating in constrained environments. By using a reduced-order model, the proposed approach simplifies the planning process, enabling the optimizer to autonomously generate gaits while constraining the robot's footprint within tight spaces. The method is validated through high-fidelity simulations that accurately model contact dynamics and the robot's motion. Key locomotion strategies are identified and further demonstrated through hardware experiments, including successful navigation through narrow corridors. I. INTRODUCTION Optimization-driven path planning and control strategies [1]-[6] have become pivotal methodologies for managing diverse, contact-intensive systems in real-world experimental settings.

-- Humanoid robots have great potential for real-world applications due to their ability to operate in environments built for humans, but their deployment is hindered by the challenge of controlling their underlying high-dimensional nonlinear hybrid dynamics. While reduced-order models like the Hybrid Linear Inverted Pendulum (HLIP) are simple and computationally efficient, they lose whole-body expressiveness. Meanwhile, recent advances in Contact-Implicit Model Predictive Control (CI-MPC) enable robots to plan through multiple hybrid contact modes, but remain vulnerable to local minima and require significant tuning. We propose a control framework that combines the strengths of HLIP and CI-MPC. The reduced-order model generates a nominal gait, while CI-MPC manages the whole-body dynamics and modifies the contact schedule as needed. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in simulation with a novel 24 degree-of-freedom humanoid robot: Achilles. Our proposed framework achieves rough terrain walking, disturbance recovery, robustness under model and state uncertainty, and allows the robot to interact with obstacles in the environment, all while running online in real-time at 50 Hz. Humanoid robots, due to their anthropomorphic structure, are well suited to perform tasks in environments built for humans.

Numerical modeling errors are unavoidable in finite element analysis. The presence of model errors inherently reflects both model accuracy and uncertainty. To date there have been few methods for explicitly quantifying errors at points of interest (e.g. at finite element nodes). The lack of explicit model error approximators has been addressed recently with the emergence of machine learning (ML), which closes the loop between numerical model features/solutions and explicit model error approximations. In this paper, we propose physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) for simultaneous numerical model error approximation and superresolution. To test our approach, numerical data was generated using finite element simulations on a two-dimensional elastic plate with a central opening. Four- and eight-node quadrilateral elements were used in the discretization to represent the reduced-order and higher-order models, respectively. It was found that the developed PINNs effectively predict model errors in both x and y displacement fields with small differences between predictions and ground truth. Our findings demonstrate that the integration of physics-informed loss functions enables neural networks (NNs) to surpass a purely data-driven approach for approximating model errors.