skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Modified Radau Collocation Method for Solving Optimal Control Problems with Nonsmooth Solutions Part II: Costate Estimation and the Transformed Adjoint System
A modified Legendre-Gauss-Radau collocation method is developed for solving optimal control problems whose solutions contain a nonsmooth optimal control. The method includes an additional variable that defines the location of nonsmoothness. In addition, collocation constraints are added at the end of a mesh interval that defines the location of nonsmoothness in the solution on each differential equation that is a function of control along with a control constraint at the endpoint of this same mesh interval. The transformed adjoint system for the modified Legendre-Gauss-Radau collocation method along with a relationship between the Lagrange multipliers of the nonlinear programming problem and a discrete approximation of the costate of the optimal control problem is then derived. Finally, it is shown via example that the new method provides an accurate approximation of the costate.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1819002 1522629
PAR ID:
10093312
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2018 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1651 to 1656
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. null (Ed.)
    A new method is developed for solving optimal control problems whose solutions are nonsmooth. The method developed in this paper employs a modified form of the Legendre–Gauss–Radau orthogonal direct collocation method. This modified Legendre–Gauss–Radau method adds two variables and two constraints at the end of a mesh interval when compared with a previously developed standard Legendre– Gauss–Radau collocation method. The two additional variables are the time at the interface between two mesh intervals and the control at the end of each mesh inter- val. The two additional constraints are a collocation condition for those differential equations that depend upon the control and an inequality constraint on the control at the endpoint of each mesh interval. The additional constraints modify the search space of the nonlinear programming problem such that an accurate approximation to the location of the nonsmoothness is obtained. The transformed adjoint system of the modified Legendre–Gauss–Radau method is then developed. Using this transformed adjoint system, a method is developed to transform the Lagrange multipliers of the nonlinear programming problem to the costate of the optimal control problem. Fur- thermore, it is shown that the costate estimate satisfies one of the Weierstrass–Erdmann optimality conditions. Finally, the method developed in this paper is demonstrated on an example whose solution is nonsmooth. 
    more » « less
  2. A new method is developed for solving optimal control problems whose solutions contain a nonsmooth optimal control. The method developed in this paper employs a modified form of the Legendre-Gauss-Radau (LGR) orthogonal direct collocation method in which an additional variable and two additional constraints are included at the end of a mesh interval. The additional variable is the switch time where a discontinuity occurs. The two additional constraints are a collocation condition on each differential equation that is a function of control along with a control constraint at the endpoint of the mesh interval that defines the location of the nonsmoothness. These additional constraints modify the search space of the NLP in a manner such that an accurate approximation to the location of the nonsmoothness is obtained. An example with a nonsmooth solution is used throughout the paper to illustrate the improvement of the method over the standard Legendre-Gauss-Radau collocation method. 
    more » « less
  3. A modified form of Legendre-Gauss orthogonal direct collocation is developed for solving optimal control problems whose solutions are nonsmooth due to control discon- tinuities. This new method adds switch time variables, control variables, and collocation conditions at both endpoints of a mesh interval, whereas these new variables and collocation con- ditions are not included in standard Legendre-Gauss orthogonal collocation. The modified Legendre-Gauss collocation method alters the search space of the resulting nonlinear programming problem and optimizes the switch point of the control solution. The transformed adjoint system of the modified Legendre- Gauss collocation method is then derived and shown to satisfy the necessary conditions for optimality. Finally, an example is provided where the optimal control is bang-bang and contains multiple switches. This method is shown to be capable of solving complex optimal control problems with nonsmooth solutions. 
    more » « less
  4. An adaptive mesh refinement method for nu- merically solving optimal control problems is described. The method employs collocation at the Legendre-Gauss-Radau points. Within each mesh interval, a relative error estimate is derived based on the difference between the Lagrange polynomial approximation of the state and an adaptive forward- backward explicit integration of the state dynamics. Accuracy in the method is achieved by adjusting the number of mesh intervals and degree of the approximating polynomial in each mesh interval. The method is demonstrated on time-optimal transfers from an L1 halo orbit to an L2 halo orbit in the Earth- Moon system, and performance is compared against previously developed mesh refinement methods. 
    more » « less
  5. An adaptive mesh refinement method for numerically solving optimal control problems is developed using Legendre-Gauss-Radau direct collocation. In regions of the solution where the desired accuracy tolerance has not been met, the mesh is refined by either increasing the degree of the approximating polynomial in a mesh interval or dividing a mesh interval into subintervals. In regions of the solution where the desired accuracy tolerance has been met, the mesh size may be reduced by either merging adjacent mesh intervals or decreasing the degree of the approximating polynomial in a mesh interval. Coupled with the mesh refinement method described in this paper is a newly developed relative error estimate that is based on the differences between solutions obtained from the collocation method and those obtained by solving initial-value and terminal-value problems in each mesh interval using an interpolated control obtained from the collocation method. Because the error estimate is based on explicit simulation, the solution obtained via collocation is in close agreement with the solution obtained via explicit simulation using the control on the final mesh, which ensures that the control is an accurate approximation of the true optimal control. The method is demonstrated on three examples from the open literature, and the results obtained show an improvement in final mesh size when compared against previously developed mesh refinement methods. 
    more » « less