# Learning the parameters of a differential equation from its trajectory via the adjoint equation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.09054 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.09054/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 7 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Jun 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Neural Ordinary Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07366/) (2018)
- [Augmented Neural ODEs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01681/) (2019)
- [Stable Architectures for Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.03341/) (2017)
- [Beyond Finite Layer Neural Networks: Bridging Deep Architectures and Numerical Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10121/) (2017)
- [Deep Neural Networks Motivated by Partial Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.04272/) (2018)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The paper contributes to strengthening the relation between machine learning and the theory of differential equations. In this context, the inverse problem of fitting the parameters, and the initial condition of a differential equation to some measurements constitutes a key issue. The paper explores an abstraction that can be used to construct a family of loss functions with the aim of fitting the solution of an initial value problem to a set of discrete or continuous measurements. It is shown, that an extension of the adjoint equation can be used to derive the gradient of the loss function as a continuous analogue of backpropagation in machine learning. Numerical evidence is presented that under reasonably controlled circumstances the gradients obtained this way can be used in a gradient descent to fit the solution of an initial value problem to a set of continuous noisy measurements, and a set of discrete noisy measurements that are recorded at uncertain times.