A BPTT-like Optimal Control Algorithm with Vehicle Dynamics Control Application

J. Kasać, J. Deur, B. Novaković, I. Kolmanovsky
DVD Proc. of 2008 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE 2008), Boston, MA
2008
The paper presents a gradient-based numerical algorithm for optimal control of nonlinear multivariable systems with control and state vectors constraints. The algorithm has a backward-in-time recurrent structure similar to the backpropagation-through-time (BPTT) algorithm, which is mostly used as a learning algorithm for dynamic neural networks. This paper presents an enhancement of the basic optimization algorithm. Our enhanced algorithm uses high-order Adams time-discretization schemes instead of the basic Euler discretization method, and a numerical calculation of Jacobians as an alternative to analytical Jacobians. Two examples are considered to illustrate the algorithm and its performance. The first example is that of a tubular reactor, for which an analytical solution is available, which can be readily used for validation of our approach. The second example is related to controlling vehicle dynamics based on a realistic high order model.