21,871 research outputs found
Contact-Implicit Trajectory Optimization Based on a Variable Smooth Contact Model and Successive Convexification
In this paper, we propose a contact-implicit trajectory optimization (CITO)
method based on a variable smooth contact model (VSCM) and successive
convexification (SCvx). The VSCM facilitates the convergence of gradient-based
optimization without compromising physical fidelity. On the other hand, the
proposed SCvx-based approach combines the advantages of direct and shooting
methods for CITO. For evaluations, we consider non-prehensile manipulation
tasks. The proposed method is compared to a version based on iterative linear
quadratic regulator (iLQR) on a planar example. The results demonstrate that
both methods can find physically-consistent motions that complete the tasks
without a meaningful initial guess owing to the VSCM. The proposed SCvx-based
method outperforms the iLQR-based method in terms of convergence, computation
time, and the quality of motions found. Finally, the proposed SCvx-based method
is tested on a standard robot platform and shown to perform efficiently for a
real-world application.Comment: Accepted for publication in ICRA 201
Imposing Economic Constraints in Nonparametric Regression: Survey, Implementation and Extension
Economic conditions such as convexity, homogeneity, homotheticity, and monotonicity are all important assumptions or consequences of assumptions of economic functionals to be estimated. Recent research has seen a renewed interest in imposing constraints in nonparametric regression. We survey the available methods in the literature, discuss the challenges that present themselves when empirically implementing these methods and extend an existing method to handle general nonlinear constraints. A heuristic discussion on the empirical implementation for methods that use sequential quadratic programming is provided for the reader and simulated and empirical evidence on the distinction between constrained and unconstrained nonparametric regression surfaces is covered.identification, concavity, Hessian, constraint weighted bootstrapping, earnings function
Control and structural optimization for maneuvering large spacecraft
Presented here are the results of an advanced control design as well as a discussion of the requirements for automating both the structures and control design efforts for maneuvering a large spacecraft. The advanced control application addresses a general three dimensional slewing problem, and is applied to a large geostationary platform. The platform consists of two flexible antennas attached to the ends of a flexible truss. The control strategy involves an open-loop rigid body control profile which is derived from a nonlinear optimal control problem and provides the main control effort. A perturbation feedback control reduces the response due to the flexibility of the structure. Results are shown which demonstrate the usefulness of the approach. Software issues are considered for developing an integrated structures and control design environment
Sparse and Constrained Stochastic Predictive Control for Networked Systems
This article presents a novel class of control policies for networked control
of Lyapunov-stable linear systems with bounded inputs. The control channel is
assumed to have i.i.d. Bernoulli packet dropouts and the system is assumed to
be affected by additive stochastic noise. Our proposed class of policies is
affine in the past dropouts and saturated values of the past disturbances. We
further consider a regularization term in a quadratic performance index to
promote sparsity in control. We demonstrate how to augment the underlying
optimization problem with a constant negative drift constraint to ensure
mean-square boundedness of the closed-loop states, yielding a convex quadratic
program to be solved periodically online. The states of the closed-loop plant
under the receding horizon implementation of the proposed class of policies are
mean square bounded for any positive bound on the control and any non-zero
probability of successful transmission
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