Parameter identification of nonlinear systems using indirect solution of optimal control problem

We derive local error estimates for the discretization of optimal control problems governed by linear advection-diffusion partial differential equations (PDEs) using the streamline upwind/Petrov Galerkin (SUPG) stabilized finite element method. We show that if the SUPG method is used to solve optimization problems governed by an advection-dominated PDE, the convergence properties of the SUPG method is substantially different from the convergence properties of the SUPG method applied for the solution of an advection-dominated PDE. The reason is that the solution of the optimal control problem involves another advection-dominated PDE, the so-called adjoint equation, whose advection field is just the negative of the advection of the governing PDEs. For the solution of the optimal control problem, a coupled system involving both the original governing PDE as well as the adjoint PDE must be solved. We show that in the presence of a boundary layer, the local error between the solution of the SUPG discretized optimal control problem and the solution of the infinite dimensional problem is only of first order even if the error is computed locally in a region away from the boundary layer. In the presence of interior layers, we prove optimal convergence rates for the local error in a region away from the layer between the solution of the SUPG discretized optimal control problems and the solution of the infinite dimensional problem. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate some of the theoretical results.

In general, optimal control problems rely on numerically rather than analytically solving methods, due to their nonlinearities. The direct method, one of the numerically solving methods, is mainly to transform the optimal control problem into a nonlinear optimization problem with finite dimensions, via discretizing the objective functional and the forced dynamical equations directly. However, in the procedure of the direct method, the classical discretizations of the forced equations will reduce or affect the accuracy of the resulting optimization problem as well as the discrete optimal control. In view of this fact, more accurate and efficient numerical algorithms should be employed to approximate the forced dynamical equations. As verified, the discrete variational difference schemes for forced Birkhoffian systems exhibit excellent numerical behaviors in terms of high accuracy, long-time stability and precise energy prediction. Thus, the forced dynamical equations in optimal control problems, after being represented as forced Birkhoffian equations, can be discretized according to the discrete variational difference schemes for forced Birkhoffian systems. Compared with the method of employing traditional difference schemes to discretize the forced dynamical equations, this way yields faithful nonlinear optimization problems and consequently gives accurate and efficient discrete optimal control. Subsequently, in the paper we are to apply the proposed method of numerically solving optimal control problems to the rendezvous and docking problem of spacecrafts. First, we make a reasonable simplification, i.e., the rendezvous and docking process of two spacecrafts is reduced to the problem of optimally transferring the chaser spacecraft with a continuously acting force from one circular orbit around the Earth to another one. During this transfer, the goal is to minimize the control effort. Second, the dynamical equations of the chaser spacecraft are represented as the form of the forced Birkhoffian equation. Then in this case, the discrete variational difference scheme for forced Birkhoffian system can be employed to discretize the chaser spacecraft's equations of motion. With further discretizing the control effort and the boundary conditions, the resulting nonlinear optimization problem is obtained. Finally, the optimization problem is solved directly by the nonlinear programming method and then the discrete optimal control is achieved. The obtained optimal control is efficient enough to realize the rendezvous and docking process, even though it is only an approximation of the continuous one. Simulation results fully verify the efficiency of the proposed method for numerically solving optimal control problems, if the fact that the time step is chosen to be very large to limit the dimension of the optimization problem is noted.

Mathematical formulation and numerical solutions of an optimal Dirichlet boundary control problem for the Boussinesq equations are considered. The solution of the optimal control problem is obtained by adjusting of the temperature on the boundary. We analyze finite element approximations. A gradient method for the solution of the discrete optimal control problem is presented and analyzed. Finally, the results of some computational experiments are presented.

The motivation for this work is the real-time solution of a standard optimal control problem arising in robotics and aerospace applications. For example, the trajectory planning problem for air vehicles is naturally cast as an optimal control problem on the tangent bundle of the Lie Group SE(3), which is also a parallelizable Riemannian manifold. For an optimal control problem on the tangent bundle of such a manifold, we use frame co-ordinates and obtain first-order necessary conditions employing calculus of variations. The use of frame co-ordinates means that intrinsic quantities like the Levi-Civita connection and Riemannian curvature tensor appear in the equations for the co-states. The resulting equations are singularity-free and considerably simpler (from a numerical perspective) than those obtained using a local co-ordinates representation, and are thus better from a computational point of view. The first order necessary conditions result in a two point boundary value problem which we successfully solve by means of a Modified Simple Shooting Method.

This article presents a unified approach to simultaneous solution of optimization and optimal control problems in batch distillation, operating under different modes of operation: variable, constant, or optimal reflux. The simplified, computationally efficient short‐cut method and a novel algorithm to solve the optimal control problems in batch distillation is the basis of this unified approach. The short‐cut method identifies the feasible region of operation essential for optimization and optimal control problems, and provides analytical partial derivatives of the model parameters crucial to the solution.The new algorithm for the solution of optimal combination of the maximum principle and NLP optimization techniques. It circumvents the problems associated with the maximum principle approach (iterative solution of a two‐point boundary value problem, undounded control variables, and inability to handle the simultaneous optimization and optimal control problem), and the coupled ODE discretization‐NLP optimization scheme for nonlinear models (higher system nonlinearities, multiplicity of solutions, sensitivity of convergence to initial guesses). This algorithm reduces the dimensionality of the problem, and the nature of the algorithm allows a common platform to optimal solutions of different operating conditions. This article also shows that different categories of the optimal control problems in batch distillation essentially involve the solution of the maximum distillate problem.

Receding horizon methods have become very popular in the last decades for the approximate solution of optimal control problems, model predictive control (MPC) being a popular choice. MPC is to a large extent a model-based feedforward technique and as such its performance is rather sensitive to the model quality. This has prompted much interest in the search of methods to make MPC more robust against deviations such as uncertain parameters. This article presents a way to incorporate additional sensitivity terms into the optimization problem in order to reduce the cost function's sensitivity to the model parameters. For tackling the problem Continuation/GMRES (C/GMRES), a method to solve receding horizon nonlinear optimal control problems in an efficient way, was chosen, however, the general formulation is not restricted to this particular method. The potential performance of the approach is shown by means of simulation examples.

Existing methods for nonlinear robust control often use scenario‐based approaches to formulate the control problem as large nonlinear optimization problems. The optimization problems are challenging to solve due to their size, especially if the control problems include time‐varying uncertainty. This paper draws from local reduction methods used in semi‐infinite optimization to solve robust optimal control problems with parametric and time‐varying uncertainty. By iteratively adding interim worst‐case scenarios to the problem, methods based on local reduction provide a way to manage the total number of scenarios. We show that the local reduction method for optimal control problems consists of solving a series of simplified optimal control problems to find worst‐case constraint violations. In particular, we present examples where local reduction methods find worst‐case scenarios that are not on the boundary of the uncertainty set. We also provide bounds on the error if local solvers are used. The proposed approach is illustrated with two case studies with parametric and additive time‐varying uncertainty. In the first case study, the number of scenarios obtained from local reduction is 101, smaller than in the case when all extreme scenarios are considered. In the second case study, the number of scenarios obtained from the local reduction is two compared to 512 extreme scenarios. Our approach was able to satisfy the constraints both for parametric uncertainty and time‐varying disturbances, whereas approaches from literature either violated the constraints or became computationally expensive.

1 A Survey on Computational Optimal Control.- Issues in the Direct Transcription of Optimal Control Problems to Sparse Nonlinear Programs.- Optimization in Control of Robots.- Large-scale SQP Methods and their Application in Trajectory Optimization.- Solving Optimal Control and Pursuit-Evasion Game Problems of High Complexity.- 2 Theoretical Aspects of Optimal Control and Nonlinear Programming.- Continuation Methods In Boundary Value Problems.- Second Order Optimality Conditions for Singular Extremals.- Synthesis of Adaptive Optimal Controls for Linear Dynamic Systems.- Control Applications of Reduced SQP Methods.- Time Optimal Control of Mechanical Systems.- 3 Algorithms for Optimal Control Calculations.- Second Order Algorithm for Time Optimal Control of a Linear System.- An SQP-type Solution Method for Constrained Discrete-Time Optimal Control Problems.- Numerical Methods for Solving Differential Games, Prospective Applications to Technical Problems.- Construction of the Optimal Feedback Controller for Constrained Optimal Control Problems with Unknown Disturbances.- Repetitive Optimization for Predictive Control of Dynamic Systems under Uncertainty.- Optimal Control of Multistage Systems Described by High-Index Differential-Algebraic Equations.- A New Class of a High Order Interior Point Method for the Solution of Convex Semiinfinite Optimization Problems.- A Structured Interior Point SQP Method for Nonlinear Optimal Control Problems.- 4 Software for Optimal Control Calculations.- Automated Approach for Optimizing Dynamic Systems.- ANDECS: A Computation Environment for Control Applications of Optimization.- Application of Automatic Differentiation to Optimal Control Problems.- OCCAL: A mixed symbolic-numeric Optimal Control CALculator.- 5 Applications of Optimal Control.- A Robotic Satellite with Simplified Design.- Nonlinear Control under Constraints of a Biological System.- An Object-Oriented Approach to Optimally Describe and Specify a SCADA System Applied to a Power Network.- Near-Optimal Flight Trajectories Generated by Neural Networks.- Performance of a Feedback Method with Respect to Changes in the Air-Density during the Ascent of a Two-Stage-To-Orbit Vehicle.- Linear Optimal Control for Reentry Flight.- Steady-State Modelling of Turbine Engine with Controllers.- Shortest Paths for Satellite Mounted Robot Manipulators.- Optimal Control of the Industrial Robot Manutec r3.

A new method for real-time calculation of nonlinear optimal control problems is proposed. The proposed method is based on the iterative algorithms for obtaining the numerical solutions of optimal control problems. In this paper, we adopt the Riccati-equation based algorithm, which is one of the iterative algorithms, and demonstrate that the proposed `algorithmic controller' is applicable to the Van der Pol problem, the crane problem, and the swing-up problem of an inverted pendulum by means of simulations and experiments.

The present paper develops an enhanced response sensitivity approach for parameter identification of nonlinear time-delay systems from the time-domain data. Accurate and rapid identification of the time-delay system’s parameters is the key to achieve effective control and synchronization, especially for the delay parameters. The work of this paper is mainly threefold. Firstly, taking a general nonlinear time-delay system as the investigated object, the characteristics of the nonlinear time-delay system are introduced, and the response sensitivity analysis with respect to the system parameters is derived. Then, the problem of parameter identification is modeled as a nonlinear least-squares optimization function. To this end, a novel iteration-based approach is developed to solve such problem, and the ill-posed situation is tackled by Tikhonov regularization. Besides, the trust-region constraint is implemented to enhance the convergence of the algorithm. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed approach is verified by two numerical examples and a real electronic circuit experiment. The results proved that the proposed approach can identify parameters of nonlinear time-delay systems accurately, robustly and effectively.

Three algorithms for efficient solution of optimal control problems for high-dimensional systems are presented. Each bypasses the intermediate (and, unnecessary) step of open-loop model reduction. Each also bypasses the solution of the full Riccati equation corresponding to the LQR problem, which is numerically intractable for large n. Motivation for this effort comes from the field of model-based flow control, where open-loop model reduction often fails to capture the dynamics of interest (governed by the Navier–Stokes equation). Our minimum control energy method is a simplified expression for the well-known minimum-energy stabilizing control feedback that depends only on the left eigenvectors corresponding to the unstable eigenvalues of the system matrix A. Our Adjoint of the Direct-Adjoint method is based on the repeated iterative computation of the adjoint of a forward problem, itself defined to be the direct-adjoint vector pair associated with the LQR problem. Our oppositely-shifted subspace iteration (OSSI, the main new result of the present paper) method is based on our new subspace iteration method for computing the Schur vectors corresponding, notably, to the \(m\ll n\) central eigenvalues (near the imaginary axis) of the Hamiltonian matrix related to the Riccati equation of interest. Prototype OSSI implementations are tested on a low-order control problem to illustrate its behavior.

We consider the problem of optimal allocation of measurement resources, when: (1) the total measurement budget and time duration of measurements are fixed, and (2) the cost of an individual measurement varies inversely with the (controllable) measurement accuracy. The objective is to determine the time-distribution of measurement variances that minimizes a measure of error in estimating a discrete-time, vector stochastic process with known auto-correlation matrix using a linear estimator. The metric of estimation error is the trace of weighted sum of estimation error covariance matrices at various time indices. We show that this problem reduces to a nonlinear optimization problem with linear equality and inequality constraints. The solution to this problem is obtained via a variation of the projected Newton method. For the special case when the vector stochastic process is the state of a linear, finite-dimensional stochastic system, the problem reduces to the solution of a nonlinear optimal control problem. In this case, the gradient and Hessian with respect to the measurement costs are obtained via the solution of a two-point boundary value problem and the resulting optimization problem is solved via a variation of the projected Newton method. The proposed method is illustrated using four examples. >

Control parametrization enhancing technique for optimal discrete-valued control problems

The aim of this paper is to study an elliptic bilateral obstacle system (EBOS, for short) involving a nonlinear and nonhomogeneous partial differential operator and a multivalued term which is described by Clarke’s generalized gradient. First, we obtain the weak formulation of (EBOS) which is a variational-hemivariational inequality, and prove the unique solvability of the bilateral obstacle problem. Second, we consider a nonlinear optimal control problem governed by (EBOS) in which the control variable is the bilateral obstacle, and establish the existence of an optimal solution to the obstacle control problem under mild conditions. Then, employing the regularization technique and penalty approach, we introduce a family of approximating problems corresponding to the optimal control problem under consideration. Finally, a convergence result that any sequence of solutions for the approximating problems converges to an optimal solution of the original optimal control problem is delivered.

The original control problem of optimal reorientation from a state of rest to a state of rest is considered and solved. The control function is torque vector. Problem of optimal control is investigated in detail for statement when control is restricted and the used functional of optimality includes kinematical rotary energy and time of maneuver. For solving and synthesis of the optimal control program, the quaternion method and the Pontryagin’s maximum principle are applied. Analytic solution of the proposed problem is presented basing on the differential equation connecting the angular velocity vector and quaternion of spacecraft attitude. It is shown that a chosen criterion of optimality provides a turn of a spacecraft with rotation energy which does not exceed the required value. This property of proposed control increases safety of flight. The time-optimal problem was solved also. The control law is formulated in the form of an explicit dependence of the control variables on the phase coordinates. All key expressions and equations are written in quaternion form which is convenient for onboard realization and implementation. The analysis of the special control regime of the spacecraft was made. Analytical formulas were written for duration of acceleration and braking. For specific cases of spacecraft configurations (dynamically symmetric spacecraft and spheric-symmetrical spacecraft as particular cases), complete solution of optimal control problem in closed form is given. Numerical example and the results of mathematical simulation for spacecraft motion under optimal control are demonstrated. This data supplements the made theoretical descriptions, and illustrates the practical feasibility of the designed algorithm for controlling the spatial orientation of the spacecraft showing reorientation process in visual form.