arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Lars Grüne.
It is known that receding horizon control with a strictly pre-dissipative optimal control problem yields a practically asymptotically stable closed loop when suitable state constraints are imposed. In this note we show that alternatively suitably bounded terminal costs can be used for stabilizing the closed loop.
Asymptotic stability in receding horizon control is obtained under a strict pre-dissipativity assumption, in the presence of suitable state constraints. In this paper we analyze how terminal constraints can be replaced by suitable terminal costs. We restrict to the linear-quadratic setting as that allows us to obtain stronger results, while we analyze the full nonlinear case in a separate contribution.
This paper presents first results for near optimality in expectation of the closed-loop solutions for stochastic economic MPC. The approach relies on a recently developed turnpike property for stochastic optimal control problems at an optimal stationary process, combined with techniques for analyzing time-varying economic MPC schemes. We obtain near optimality in finite time as well as overtaking and average near optimality on infinite time horizons.
In this paper, we introduce and study different dissipativity notions and different turnpike properties for discrete-time stochastic nonlinear optimal control problems. The proposed stochastic dissipativity notions extend the classic notion of Jan C. Willems to $L^r$ random variables and to probability measures. Our stochastic turnpike properties range from a formulation for random variables via turnpike phenomena in probability and in probability measures to the turnpike property for the moments. Moreover, we investigate how different metrics (such as Wasserstein or Lévy-Prokhorov) can be leveraged in the analysis. Our results are built upon stationarity concepts in distribution and in random variables and on the formulation of the stochastic optimal control problem as a finite-horizon Markov decision process. We investigate how the proposed dissipativity notions connect to the various stochastic turnpike properties and we work out the link between different forms of dissipativity.
The totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) is a stochastic model for the unidirectional dynamics of interacting particles on a $1$D-lattice that is much used in systems biology and statistical physics. Its master equation describes the evolution of the probability distribution on the state space. The size of the master equation grows exponentially with the length of the lattice. It is known that the complexity of the system may be reduced using mean field approximations. We provide a rigorous derivation and a stochastic interpretation of these approximations and present numerical results on their accuracy for a number of relevant cases.
For nonlinear (control) systems, extended dynamic mode decomposition (EDMD) is a popular method to obtain data-driven surrogate models. Its theoretical foundation is the Koopman framework, in which one propagates observable functions of the state to obtain a linear representation in an infinite-dimensional space. In this work, we prove practical asymptotic stability of a (controlled) equilibrium for EDMD-based model predictive control, in which the optimization step is conducted using the data-based surrogate model. To this end, we derive novel bounds on the estimation error that are proportional to the norm of state and control. This enables us to show that, if the underlying system is cost controllable, this stabilizablility property is preserved. We conduct numerical simulations illustrating the proven practical asymptotic stability.
We analyse the closed-loop performance of a model predictive control (MPC) for tracking formulation with artificial references. It has been shown that such a scheme guarantees closed-loop stability and recursive feasibility for any externally supplied reference, even if it is unreachable or time-varying. The basic idea is to consider an artificial reference as an additional decision variable and to formulate generalised terminal ingredients with respect to it. In addition, its offset is penalised in the MPC optimisation problem, leading to closed-loop convergence to the best reachable reference. In this paper, we provide a transient performance bound on the closed loop using MPC for tracking. We employ mild assumptions on the offset cost and scale it with the prediction horizon. In this case, an increasing horizon in MPC for tracking recovers the infinite horizon optimal solution.
We investigate pathwise turnpike behavior of discrete-time stochastic linear-quadratic optimal control problems. Our analysis is based on a novel strict dissipativity notion for such problems, in which a stationary stochastic process replaces the optimal steady state of the deterministic setting. The analytical findings are illustrated by a numerical example.
We consider a class of bilinear weakly contractive systems that entrain to periodic excitations. Entrainment is important in many natural and artificial processes. For example, in order to function properly synchronous generators must entrain to the frequency of the electrical grid, and biological organisms must entrain to the 24h solar day. A dynamical system has a positive gain of entrainment (GOE) if entrainment also yields a larger output, on average. This property is important in many applications from the periodic operation of bioreactors to the periodic production of proteins during the cell cycle division process. We derive a closed-form formula for the GOE to first-order in the control perturbation. This is used to show that in the class of systems that we consider the GOE is always a higher-order phenomenon. We demonstrate the theoretical results using two applications: the master equation and a model from systems biology called the ribosome flow model, both with time-varying and periodic transition rates.
In this paper we extend dynamic programming techniques to the study of discrete-time infinite horizon optimal control problems on compact control invariant sets with state-independent best asymptotic average cost. To this end we analyse the interplay of dissipativity and optimal control, and propose novel recursive approaches for the solution of so called shifted Bellman Equations.
The ribosome flow model (RFM) is a phenomenological model for the flow of particles along a 1D chain of $n$ sites. It has been extensively used to study ribosome flow along the mRNA molecule during translation. When the transition rates along the chain are time-varying and jointly $T$-periodic the RFM entrains, i.e., every trajectory of the RFM converges to a unique $T$-periodic solution that depends on the transition rates, but not on the initial condition. In general, entrainment to periodic excitations like the 24h solar day or the 50Hz frequency of the electric grid is important in numerous natural and artificial systems. An interesting question, called the gain of entrainment (GOE) in the RFM, is whether proper coordination of the periodic translation rates along the mRNA can lead to a larger average protein production rate. Analyzing the GOE in the RFM is non-trivial and partial results exist only for the RFM with dimensions $n=1,2$. We use a new approach to derive several results on the GOE in the general $n$-dimensional RFM. Perhaps surprisingly, we rigorously characterize several cases where there is no GOE, so to maximize the average production rate in these cases, the best choice is to use constant transition rates all along the chain.
We provide a stability and performance analysis for nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) schemes subject to input constraints. Given an exponential stabilizability and detectability condition w.r.t. the employed state cost, we provide a sufficiently long prediction horizon to ensure asymptotic stability and a desired performance bound w.r.t. the infinite-horizon optimal controller. Compared to existing results, the provided analysis is applicable to positive semi-definite (detectable) cost functions, provides tight bounds using a linear programming analysis, and allows for a seamless integration of general positive-definite terminal cost functions in the analysis. The practical applicability of the derived theoretical results are demonstrated with numerical examples.
We consider nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) with multiple competing cost functions. This leads to the formulation of multiobjective optimal control problems (MO OCPs). Since the design of MPC algorithms for directly solving multiobjective problems is rather complicated, particularly if terminal conditions shall be avoided, we use an indirect approach via a weighted sum formulation for solving these MO OCPs. This way, for each set of weights we obtain an optimal control problem with a single objective. In economic MPC it is known that strict dissipativity is the key assumption for concluding performance and stability results. We thus investigate under which conditions a convex combination of strictly dissipative stage costs is strictly dissipative again. We first give conditions for problems with linear dynamics and then move on to consider fully nonlinear optimal control problems. We derive both necessary and sufficient conditions on the individual cost functions and on the weights to conclude strict dissipativity and illustrate our findings with numerical examples.
We consider nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) with multiple competing cost functions. In each step of the scheme, a multiobjective optimal control problem with a nonlinear system and terminal conditions is solved. We propose an algorithm and give performance guarantees for the resulting MPC closed loop system. Thereby, we significantly simplify the assumptions made in the literature so far by assuming strict dissipativity and the existence of a compatible terminal cost for one of the competing objective functions only. We give conditions which ensure asymptotic stability of the closed loop and, what is more, obtain performance estimates for all cost criteria. Numerical simulations on various instances illustrate our findings. The proposed algorithm requires the selection of an efficient solution in each iteration, thus we examine several selection rules and their impact on the results.
We show how a posteriori goal oriented error estimation can be used to efficiently solve the subproblems occurring in a Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm. In MPC, only an initial part of a computed solution is implemented as a feedback, which motivates grid refinement particularly tailored to this context. To this end, we present a truncated cost functional as objective for goal oriented adaptivity and prove under stabilizability assumptions that error indicators decay exponentially outside the support of this quantity. This leads to very efficient time and space discretizations for MPC, which we will illustrate by means of various numerical examples.
We analyze the sensitivity of the extremal equations that arise from the first order necessary optimality conditions of nonlinear optimal control problems with respect to perturbations of the dynamics and of the initial data. To this end, we present an abstract implicit function approach with scaled spaces. We will apply this abstract approach to problems governed by semilinear PDEs. In that context, we prove an exponential turnpike result and show that perturbations of the extremal equation's dynamics, e.g., discretization errors decay exponentially in time. The latter can be used for very efficient discretization schemes in a Model Predictive Controller, where only a part of the solution needs to be computed accurately. We showcase the theoretical results by means of two examples with a nonlinear heat equation on a two-dimensional domain.
We analyze strict dissipativity of generalized linear quadratic optimal control problems on Hilbert spaces. Here, the term ``generalized'' refers to cost functions containing both quadratic and linear terms. We characterize strict pre-dissipativity with a quadratic storage function via coercivity of a particular Lyapunov-like quadratic form. Further, we show that under an additional algebraic assumption, strict pre-dissipativity can be strengthened to strict dissipativity. Last, we relate the obtained characterizations of dissipativity with exponential detectability.
A small-gain approach is proposed to analyze closed-loop stability of linear diffusion-reaction systems under finite-dimensional observer-based state feedback control. For this, the decomposition of the infinite-dimensional system into a finite-dimensional slow subsystem used for design and an infinite-dimensional residual fast subsystem is considered. The effect of observer spillover in terms of a particular (dynamic) interconnection of the subsystems is thoroughly analyzed for in-domain and boundary control as well as sensing. This leads to the application of a small-gain theorem for interconnected systems based on input-to-output stability and unbounded observability properties. Moreover, an approach is presented for the computation of the required dimension of the slow subsystem used for controller design. Simulation scenarios for both scalar and coupled linear diffusion-reaction systems are used to underline the theoretical assessment and to give insight into the resulting properties of the interconnected systems.