Structure-Preserving Gaussian Processes Via Discrete Euler-Lagrange Equations

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ewering, Jan-Hendrik, Flaßkamp, Kathrin, Wahlström, Niklas, Schön, Thomas B., Seel, Thomas
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866917468322136064
author Ewering, Jan-Hendrik
Flaßkamp, Kathrin
Wahlström, Niklas
Schön, Thomas B.
Seel, Thomas
author_facet Ewering, Jan-Hendrik
Flaßkamp, Kathrin
Wahlström, Niklas
Schön, Thomas B.
Seel, Thomas
contents In this paper, we propose Lagrangian Gaussian Processes (LGPs) for probabilistic and data-efficient learning of dynamics via discrete forced Euler-Lagrange equations. Importantly, the geometric structure of the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle, which governs the motion of dynamical systems, is preserved by construction in the absence of external forces. This allows learning physically consistent models that overcome erroneous drift in the system's energy, thereby providing stable long-term predictions. At the core of our approach lie linear operators for Gaussian process conditioning, constructed from discrete forced Euler-Lagrange equations and variational discretization schemes. Thereby and unlike prior work, the method enables learning dynamics from discrete position snapshots, i.e., without access to a system's velocities or momenta. This is particularly relevant for a large class of practical scenarios where only position measurements are available, for instance, in motion capture or visual servoing applications. We demonstrate the data-efficiency and generalization capabilities of the LGPs in various synthetic and real-world case studies, including a real-world soft robot with hysteresis. The experimental results underscore that the LGPs learn physically consistent dynamics with uncertainty quantification solely from sparse positional data and enable stable long-term predictions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_06246
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Structure-Preserving Gaussian Processes Via Discrete Euler-Lagrange Equations
Ewering, Jan-Hendrik
Flaßkamp, Kathrin
Wahlström, Niklas
Schön, Thomas B.
Seel, Thomas
Machine Learning
Robotics
In this paper, we propose Lagrangian Gaussian Processes (LGPs) for probabilistic and data-efficient learning of dynamics via discrete forced Euler-Lagrange equations. Importantly, the geometric structure of the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle, which governs the motion of dynamical systems, is preserved by construction in the absence of external forces. This allows learning physically consistent models that overcome erroneous drift in the system's energy, thereby providing stable long-term predictions. At the core of our approach lie linear operators for Gaussian process conditioning, constructed from discrete forced Euler-Lagrange equations and variational discretization schemes. Thereby and unlike prior work, the method enables learning dynamics from discrete position snapshots, i.e., without access to a system's velocities or momenta. This is particularly relevant for a large class of practical scenarios where only position measurements are available, for instance, in motion capture or visual servoing applications. We demonstrate the data-efficiency and generalization capabilities of the LGPs in various synthetic and real-world case studies, including a real-world soft robot with hysteresis. The experimental results underscore that the LGPs learn physically consistent dynamics with uncertainty quantification solely from sparse positional data and enable stable long-term predictions.
title Structure-Preserving Gaussian Processes Via Discrete Euler-Lagrange Equations
topic Machine Learning
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06246