Douglas–Rachford algorithm for control- and state-constrained optimal control problems

Abstract

We consider the application of the Douglas–Rachford (DR) algorithm to solve linear-quadratic (LQ) control problems with box constraints on the state and control variables. We have split the constraints of the optimal control problem into two sets: one involving the ordinary differential equation with boundary conditions, which is affine, and the other, a box. We have rewritten the LQ control problems as the minimization of the sum of two convex functions. We have found the proximal mappings of these functions, which we then employ for the projections in the DR iterations. We propose a numerical algorithm for computing the projection onto the affine set. We present a conjecture for finding the costates and the state constraint multipliers of the optimal control problem, which can, in turn, be used to verify the optimality conditions. We conducted numerical experiments with two constrained optimal control problems to illustrate the performance and the efficiency of the DR algorithm in comparison with the traditional approach of direct discretization.

Keywords

• optimal control
• douglas–rachford algorithm
• harmonic oscillator
• control constraints
• state constraints
• numerical methods