TELKOMNIKA (Telecommunication Computing Electronics and Control)
Vol 24, No 5: October 2026

Hybrid neural network-augmented model predictive control for differential-drive robot tracking

Taoufik Belkebir (University Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah)
Hicham Belkebir (Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University)
Anass Mansouri (Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Oct 2026

Abstract

Nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) is widely adopted for mobile robot trajectory tracking, yet the interaction between transcription methods and learning-based enhancements remains unstudied for differential-drive platforms. This paper presents a unified CasADi/Interior Point OPTimizer (IPOPT) evaluation of fourth-order Runge-Kutta (RK4) multiple shooting (MS) and Hermite-Simpson (HS) direct collocation on a TurtleBot3 Burger across ten scenarios spanning five trajectory families, model mismatch, and sensor noise. A ?-ambiguity in the standard ???2 (??) heading cost is identified and corrected, reducing figure-eight tracking error by approximately 95%. RK4 MS achieves superior baseline accuracy in 9 of 10 experiments (? < 0.01). Three hybrid neural approaches are evaluated: warm-starting reduces solve time by 16% with no accuracy loss; adaptive transcription selection outperforms the baseline in 3 of 10 experiments; and neural approximate control achieves sub-millisecond inference but degrades on unseen trajectories (51%-64% fallback rate). A generalization hierarchy emerges: solver-in-the-loop methods generalize without measurable degradation, whereas solver-replacement methods require trajectory-specific training. These findings suggest that solver involvement is a key factor influencing generalization in learning-augmented predictive control. All results are statistically validated across 500 simulations.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

TELKOMNIKA

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT

Description

Submitted papers are evaluated by anonymous referees by single blind peer review for contribution, originality, relevance, and presentation. The Editor shall inform you of the results of the review as soon as possible, hopefully in 10 weeks. Please notice that because of the great number of ...