Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Honor, Samuel, Abdelnaby, Mohamed, Leahy, Kevin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.02615
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913001080094720
author Honor, Samuel
Abdelnaby, Mohamed
Leahy, Kevin
author_facet Honor, Samuel
Abdelnaby, Mohamed
Leahy, Kevin
contents Graph neural networks (GNNs) are a well-regarded tool for learned control of networked dynamical systems due to their ability to be deployed in a distributed manner. However, current distributed GNN architectures assume that all nodes in the network collect geometric observations in compatible bases, which limits the usefulness of such controllers in GPS-denied and compass-denied environments. This paper presents a GNN parametrization that is globally invariant to choice of local basis. 2D geometric features and transformations between bases are expressed in the complex domain. Inside each GNN layer, complex-valued linear layers with phase-equivariant activation functions are used. When viewed from a fixed global frame, all policies learned by this architecture are strictly invariant to choice of local frames. This architecture is shown to increase the data efficiency, tracking performance, and generalization of learned control when compared to a real-valued baseline on an imitation learning flocking task.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_02615
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Complex-Valued GNNs for Distributed Basis-Invariant Control of Planar Systems
Honor, Samuel
Abdelnaby, Mohamed
Leahy, Kevin
Machine Learning
Graph neural networks (GNNs) are a well-regarded tool for learned control of networked dynamical systems due to their ability to be deployed in a distributed manner. However, current distributed GNN architectures assume that all nodes in the network collect geometric observations in compatible bases, which limits the usefulness of such controllers in GPS-denied and compass-denied environments. This paper presents a GNN parametrization that is globally invariant to choice of local basis. 2D geometric features and transformations between bases are expressed in the complex domain. Inside each GNN layer, complex-valued linear layers with phase-equivariant activation functions are used. When viewed from a fixed global frame, all policies learned by this architecture are strictly invariant to choice of local frames. This architecture is shown to increase the data efficiency, tracking performance, and generalization of learned control when compared to a real-valued baseline on an imitation learning flocking task.
title Complex-Valued GNNs for Distributed Basis-Invariant Control of Planar Systems
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.02615