# Data-driven feedforward control design for nonlinear systems: A control-oriented system identification approach

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.11197 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11197/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 20 Mar 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Learning Nonlinear Systems In-Context: From Synthetic Data to Real-World Motor Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07173/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Feedforward controllers typically rely on accurately identified inverse models of the system dynamics to achieve high reference tracking performance. However, the impact of the (inverse) model identification error on the resulting tracking error is only analyzed a posteriori in experiments. Therefore, in this work, we develop an approach to feedforward control design that aims at minimizing the tracking error a priori. To achieve this, we present a model of the system in a lifted space of trajectories, based on which we derive an upperbound on the reference tracking performance. Minimization of this bound yields a feedforward control-oriented system identification cost function, and a finite-horizon optimization to compute the feedforward control signal. The nonlinear feedforward control design method is validated using physics-guided neural networks on a nonlinear, nonminimum phase mechatronic example, where it outperforms linear ILC.