UF-RNN: Real-Time Adaptive Motion Generation Using Uncertainty-Driven Foresight Prediction

Abstract

Training robots to operate effectively in environments with uncertain states, such as ambiguous object properties or unpredictable interactions, remains a longstanding challenge in robotics. Imitation learning methods typically rely on successful examples and often neglect failure scenarios where uncertainty is most pronounced. To address this limitation, we propose the Uncertainty-driven Foresight Recurrent Neural Network (UF-RNN), a model that combines standard time-series prediction with an active "Foresight" module. This module performs internal simulations of multiple future trajectories and refines the hidden state to minimize predicted variance, enabling the model to selectively explore actions under high uncertainty. We evaluate UF-RNN on a door-opening task in both simulation and a real-robot setting, demonstrating that, despite the absence of explicit failure demonstrations, the model exhibits robust adaptation by leveraging self-induced chaotic dynamics in its latent space. When guided by the Foresight module, these chaotic properties stimulate exploratory behaviors precisely when the environment is ambiguous, yielding improved success rates compared to conventional stochastic RNN baselines. These findings suggest that integrating uncertainty-driven foresight into imitation learning pipelines can significantly enhance a robot's ability to handle unpredictable real-world conditions.