MPC vs RL for robot tracking: the precision bottleneck is hardware, not the solver
ChongZzZhang · x · 2026-10-20
Following an earlier discussion, the author had Codex vibe-code an MPC vs RL comparison for tabletop end-effector tracking: Pinocchio for MPC, a cupy-based simulator, and tuned RL reaching comparable tracking accuracy — costing 1.6M tokens. Under perfect modelling, both errors are negligible versus real-world uncertainty, so hardware, not the solver, is the bottleneck. This counters the belief that IK guarantees better precision than RL.
Related event: MPC vs RL Experiment Shows DRL Can Master Precise Robot Control(3 posts)→
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