A direct optimization algorithm for input-constrained MPC

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, data-independent optimization algorithm for input-constrained MPC that guarantees worst-case execution time, enabling reliable real-time control in embedded systems.

Contribution

It proposes a cost-free, data-independent initialization method for interior-point algorithms, removing the need for feasible starting points in input-constrained MPC.

Findings

Algorithm's iteration count depends only on problem dimension

The method provides exact iteration bounds, not worst-case estimates

Numerical validation confirms execution time certification

Abstract

Providing an execution time certificate is a pressing requirement when deploying Model Predictive Control (MPC) in real-time embedded systems such as microcontrollers. Real-time MPC requires that its worst-case (maximum) execution time must be theoretically guaranteed to be smaller than the sampling time in closed-loop. This technical note considers input-constrained MPC problems and exploits the structure of the resulting box-constrained QPs. Then, we propose a \textit{cost-free} and \textit{data-independent} initialization strategy, which enables us, for the first time, to remove the initialization assumption of feasible full-Newton interior-point algorithms. We prove that the number of iterations of our proposed algorithm is \textit{only dimension-dependent} (\textit{data-independent}), \textit{simple-calculated}, and \textit{exact} (not \textit{worst-case}) with the value $\left\lceil\frac{\log(\frac{2n}{\epsilon})}{-2\log(\frac{\sqrt{2n}}{\sqrt{2n}+\sqrt{2}-1})}\right\rceil \!+ 1$, where $n$ denotes the problem dimension and $\epsilon$ denotes the constant stopping tolerance. These features enable our algorithm to trivially certify the execution time of nonlinear MPC (via online linearized schemes) or adaptive MPC problems. The execution-time-certified capability of our algorithm is theoretically and numerically validated through an open-loop unstable AFTI-16 example.