Acting on an estimate of the present

A two-joint arm reaching under a sensory delay. Watch where the controller thinks its hand is, where its senses say it is, and where it actually is.

Sensory signals about the body arrive late. A controller that knows how its own body responds to commands does not have to wait for them: it can take the last state its senses reported and run that state forward through the commands it has issued since. Feedback still matters, but its job changes — it corrects the movement in progress and recalibrates the model that does the steering.

Workspace baseline

where the hand is where the senses say it is where the model says it is intended path force on the hand
Sensory lag error
Model estimate error
Model matches world
Model expects

Hand speed true, and what has arrived

Sideways error, reach by reach reach 0

What the model has learned force vs. hand velocity

Run
Body 120 ms 150 450 ms
World 0 N·s/m 0.50
Model none