Control

Port-Hamiltonian Control

Port-Hamiltonian control is an energy-based framework that models a robot as a network of energy-storing and energy-dissipating elements exchanging power through ports, with dynamics expressed via a Hamiltonian energy function. Control by interconnection and energy shaping, notably the IDA-PBC methodology, assigns a desired energy landscape and damping to the closed loop, generalizing passivity-based design with explicit physical structure.

Why it matters for physical AI

Energy-based formulations yield interaction controllers with stability guarantees rooted in physics rather than linearization, and they offer a principled way to certify learned or adaptive components in contact-rich control loops.