Continuous-time iterative linear-quadratic regulator
Abstract
We present a continuous-time equivalent to the well-known iterative linear-quadratic algorithm including an implementation of a backtracking line-search policy and a novel regularization approach based on the necessary conditions in the Riccati pass of the linear-quadratic regulator. This allows the algorithm to effectively solve trajectory optimization problems with non-convex cost functions, which is demonstrated on the cart-pole swing-up problem. The algorithm compatibility with state-of-the-art suites of numerical integration solvers allows for the use of high-order adaptive-step methods. Their use results in a variable number of time steps both between passes of the algorithm and across iterations, maintaining a balance between the number of function evaluations and the discretization error.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.15525,
title = {Continuous-time iterative linear-quadratic regulator},
author = {Juraj Lieskovský and Jaroslav Bušek and Tomáš Vyhlídal},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.15525},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
6 pages, 3 figures, submitted March 31, 2025, to Decision and Control (CDC 2025)