# Learning Nonholonomic Dynamics with Constraint Discovery

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.15201 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15201/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 17 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Neural Ordinary Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07366/) (2018)
- [Automatic Symmetry Discovery with Lie Algebra Convolutional Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07103/) (2021)
- [Data-driven Prediction of General Hamiltonian Dynamics via Learning Exactly-Symplectic Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.05632/) (2021)
- [Reversible and irreversible bracket-based dynamics for deep graph neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15616/) (2023)
- [Leveraging Symmetries in Pick and Place](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07948/) (2023)
- [Lie-Poisson Neural Networks (LPNets): Data-Based Computing of Hamiltonian Systems with Symmetries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15349/) (2023)
- [SympGNNs: Symplectic Graph Neural Networks for identifiying high-dimensional Hamiltonian systems and node classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16698/) (2024)
- [CLPNets: Coupled Lie-Poisson Neural Networks for Multi-Part Hamiltonian Systems with Symmetries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16160/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We consider learning nonholonomic dynamical systems while discovering the constraints, and describe in detail the case of the rolling disk. A nonholonomic system is a system subject to nonholonomic constraints. Unlike holonomic constraints, nonholonomic constraints do not define a sub-manifold on the configuration space. Therefore, the inverse problem of finding the constraints has to involve the tangent bundle. This paper discusses a general procedure to learn the dynamics of a nonholonomic system through Hamel's formalism, while discovering the system constraint by parameterizing it, given the data set of discrete trajectories on the tangent bundle TQ. We prove that there is a local minimum for convergence of the network. We also preserve symmetry of the system by reducing the Lagrangian to the Lie algebra of the selected group.