[{"type":"conference","year":"2026","keyword":["Reinforcement Learning","Robotic Manipulation","Morphology Generalization","Sim-to-Real Transfer"],"project":[{"name":"Institute for Building Intelligence","_id":"A827C0AA-C7DA-11E9-B0AE-1F4CB252D58D"}],"quality_controlled":"1","title":"Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control","conference":{"start_date":"2026-11-18","end_date":"2026-11-20","location":"Barcelona","name":"9th Iberian Robotics Conference (ROBOT) "},"abstract":[{"lang":"eng","text":"Deep reinforcement learning (RL) policies for robotic control typically overfit to a single hardware configuration. Any change to the kinematic chain breaks the learned mapping and requires complete retraining. This paper investigates whether combining self-attention mechanisms with explicit spatial observations can improve a policy’s adaptability to varying kinematic topologies. We train a single RL agent to control a robotic manipulator across different degrees of freedom (DOF), ranging from a restricted 4-DOF mode to a fully redundant 7-DOF configuration. Instead of fixed-length state vectors, the method processes the active joints as a variable-length sequence in an attention buffer, enriching each joint’s representation with its relative spatial routing and geometric Jacobian influence. This structure allows the agent to dynamically evaluate the physical utility of its available actuators. The proposed Architecture reaches a success rate of 82.1% across trained topologies and 66.6% on unseen configurations, outperforming MLP and generic attention baselines while remaining nearly collisionfree. Finally, we demonstrate successful sim-to-real transfer by deploying the simulation-trained agent on a physical Franka Emika Panda manipulator."}],"language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"user_id":"244831","date_created":"2026-09-21T16:34:09Z","publication_status":"accepted","status":"public","date_updated":"2026-09-21T19:31:42Z","author":[{"id":"244831","orcid_put_code_url":"https://api.orcid.org/v2.0/0009-0009-6800-1273/work/227375532","full_name":"Mayer, Patrick Thomas","first_name":"Patrick Thomas","orcid":"0009-0009-6800-1273","last_name":"Mayer"},{"first_name":"Jan","last_name":"Rexilius","orcid":"0000-0002-4579-214X","orcid_put_code_url":"https://api.orcid.org/v2.0/0000-0002-4579-214X/work/227375533","full_name":"Rexilius, Jan","id":"245736"}],"department":[{"_id":"102"}],"_id":"7175","citation":{"apa":"Mayer, P. T., &#38; Rexilius, J. (n.d.). Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control. Presented at the 9th Iberian Robotics Conference (ROBOT) , Barcelona.","chicago":"Mayer, Patrick Thomas, and Jan Rexilius. “Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control,” n.d.","short":"P.T. Mayer, J. Rexilius, in: n.d.","alphadin":"<span style=\"font-variant:small-caps;\">Mayer, Patrick Thomas</span> ; <span style=\"font-variant:small-caps;\">Rexilius, Jan</span>: Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control. In:","mla":"Mayer, Patrick Thomas, and Jan Rexilius. <i>Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control</i>.","ieee":"P. T. Mayer and J. Rexilius, “Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control,” presented at the 9th Iberian Robotics Conference (ROBOT) , Barcelona.","bibtex":"@inproceedings{Mayer_Rexilius, title={Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control}, author={Mayer, Patrick Thomas and Rexilius, Jan} }","ama":"Mayer PT, Rexilius J. Adapting to Variable Kinematic Configurations: A Causal-Kinematic Attention Approach for Robotic Control."}},{"_id":"7174","citation":{"alphadin":"<span style=\"font-variant:small-caps;\">Mayer, Patrick Thomas</span> ; <span style=\"font-variant:small-caps;\">Rexilius, Jan</span>: A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer. In:","mla":"Mayer, Patrick Thomas, and Jan Rexilius. <i>A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer</i>.","ieee":"P. T. Mayer and J. Rexilius, “A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer,” presented at the 26th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS), Sapporo.","short":"P.T. Mayer, J. Rexilius, in: n.d.","bibtex":"@inproceedings{Mayer_Rexilius, title={A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer}, author={Mayer, Patrick Thomas and Rexilius, Jan} }","ama":"Mayer PT, Rexilius J. A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer.","chicago":"Mayer, Patrick Thomas, and Jan Rexilius. “A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer,” n.d.","apa":"Mayer, P. T., &#38; Rexilius, J. (n.d.). A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer. Presented at the 26th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS), Sapporo."},"author":[{"id":"244831","first_name":"Patrick Thomas","last_name":"Mayer","orcid":"0009-0009-6800-1273","orcid_put_code_url":"https://api.orcid.org/v2.0/0009-0009-6800-1273/work/227375528","full_name":"Mayer, Patrick Thomas"},{"id":"245736","orcid_put_code_url":"https://api.orcid.org/v2.0/0000-0002-4579-214X/work/227375529","full_name":"Rexilius, Jan","first_name":"Jan","last_name":"Rexilius","orcid":"0000-0002-4579-214X"}],"department":[{"_id":"102"}],"date_created":"2026-09-21T16:30:06Z","publication_status":"accepted","status":"public","date_updated":"2026-09-21T19:31:37Z","abstract":[{"lang":"eng","text":"This paper presents a hybrid control architecture for dynamic robotic picking tasks. The framework combines a Deep Reinforcement Learning policy for high-level interception with a dedicated Inverse Kinematics controller for precise terminal grasping, while mitigating precision limitations of monolithic learning-based approaches. The framework utilizes a Proximal Policy Optimization agent to approach moving targets, seamlessly transitioning to an Inverse Kinematics solver that reduces terminal orientational and positional errors while minimizing cumulative control effort. To facilitate deployment on physical hardware, a robust sim-to-real pipeline incorporating system identification, domain randomization, and latency injection is employed. Experimental results on a physical Franka Emika Panda manipulator validate this hybrid architecture. The system achieves an 80% success rate in pick-and-place tasks, compared to 60.8% for unadapted baselines, with no safety-critical violations such as joint limit breaches or collisions observed during testing."}],"language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"user_id":"244831","conference":{"end_date":"2026-10-30","location":"Sapporo","name":"26th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS)","start_date":"2026-10-27"},"keyword":["Reinforcement Learning","Hybrid Control","Sim-to-Real","Robotic Manipulation","Inverse Kinematics."],"quality_controlled":"1","title":"A Hybrid Control Framework Using Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Robotic Manipulation and Sim-to-Real Transfer","project":[{"name":"Institute for Building Intelligence","_id":"A827C0AA-C7DA-11E9-B0AE-1F4CB252D58D"}],"year":"2026","type":"conference"}]