A method for controlling a physical process includes receiving an input dataset corresponding to the physical process. The method further includes determining a data model based on the input dataset. The data model includes a plurality of latent space variables of a machine learning model. The method also includes receiving a plurality of reference models corresponding to a plurality of classes. Each of the plurality of reference models includes a corresponding plurality of latent space variables. The method includes comparing the data model with each of the plurality of reference models to generate a plurality of distance metric values. The method further includes selecting a reference model among the plurality of reference models based on the plurality of distance metric values. The method also includes controlling the physical process based on the selected reference model.