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Bang-bang control is ubiquitous for Optimal Control Problems (OCPs) where the constrained control variable appears linearly in the dynamics and cost function. Based on the Pontryagin's Minimum Principle, the indirect method is widely used…
This paper proposes a new indirect solution method for solving state-constrained optimal control problems by revisiting the well-established optimal control theory and addressing the long-standing issue of discontinuous control and costate…
Recent low-thrust space missions have highlighted the importance of designing trajectories that are robust against uncertainties. In its complete form, this process is formulated as a nonlinear constrained stochastic optimal control…
Efficient performance of a number of engineering systems is achieved through different modes of operation - yielding systems described as "hybrid", containing both real-valued and discrete decision variables. Prominent examples of such…
The impact forces during switching operations of short-stroke actuators may cause bouncing, audible noise and mechanical wear. The application of soft-landing control strategies to these devices aims at minimizing the impact velocities of…
Optimization of low-thrust trajectories that involve a larger number of orbit revolutions is considered a challenging problem. This paper describes a high-precision symplectic method and optimization techniques to solve the minimum-energy…
Low-thrust trajectory design relies heavily on repeated evaluations of fuel consumption and transfer feasibility, which require expensive optimal control solutions. In this work, we show these quantities can be accurately approximated by…
Powered descent guidance (PDG) problems subject to six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) dynamics allow for enforcement of practical attitude constraints. However, numerical solutions to 6DOF PDG problems are challenging due to fast rotational…
We present a path - integral approach to treat a 2D model of a quantum bifurcation. The model potential has two equivalent minima separated by one or two saddle points, depending on the value of a continuous parameter. Tunneling is…
We propose a novel B-spline trajectory optimization method for autonomous racing. We consider the unavailability of sophisticated race car and race track dynamics in early-stage autonomous motorsports development and derive methods that…
We investigate the performance of a lightweight tracking controller, based on a flow version of the Newton-Raphson method, applied to a miniature blimp and a mid-size quadrotor. This tracking technique admits theoretical performance…
Multi-revolution low-thrust trajectory optimization problems are important and challenging in space mission design. In this paper, an efficient, accurate, and widely applicable pseudospectral method is proposed to solve multi-revolution…
This paper presents an experimental study of a path-tracking framework for autonomous vehicles in which the lateral control command is applied to a dynamic control point along the wheelbase. Instead of enforcing a fixed reference at either…
Gradient normalization and soft clipping are two popular techniques for tackling instability issues and improving convergence of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with momentum. In this article, we study these types of methods through the…
We introduce iR2N, a modified proximal quasi-Newton method for minimizing the sum of a smooth function $f$ and a lower semi-continuous prox-bounded function $h$, allowing inexact evaluations of $f$, its gradient, and the associated proximal…
Roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing requires precise tension and velocity control under operational constraints. Model predictive control demands gradient computation, while sampling-based methods like MPPI struggle with hard constraint…
Model Predictive Static Programming (MPSP) was always used under the assumption of continuous control, which impedes it for applications with bang-off-bang control directly. In this paper, MPSP is employed for the first time as a guidance…
While LLMs excel at single-turn generation, they struggle with long-horizon, multi-turn interactions. Offline reinforcement learning (RL) offers a scalable approach, yet its performance hinges on the availability and quality of multi-turn…
Although the mean-variance control was initially formulated for financial portfolio management problems in which one wants to maximize expected return and control the risk, our motivations also stem from highway vehicle platoon controls…
We investigate the asymptotic properties of the trajectories generated by a second-order dynamical system of proximal-gradient type stated in connection with the minimization of the sum of a nonsmooth convex and a (possibly nonconvex)…