A unified numerical scheme for linear-quadratic optimal control problems with joint control and state constraints

This paper presents a numerical scheme for solving the continuous-time convex linear-quadratic (LQ) optimal control problem with mixed polyhedral state and control constraints. Unifying a discretization of this optimal control problem as often employed in model predictive control and that obtained through time-stepping methods based on the differential variational inequality reformulation, the scheme solves a sequence of finite-dimensional convex quadratic programs (QPs) whose optimal solutions are employed to construct a sequence of discrete-time trajectories dependent on the time step. Under certain technical primal–dual assumptions primarily to deal with the algebraic constraints involving the state variable, we prove that such a numerical trajectory converges to an optimal trajectory of the continuous-time control problem as the time step goes to zero, with both the limiting optimal state and costate trajectories being absolutely continuous. This provides a constructive proof of the existence of a solution to the optimal control problem with such regularity properties. Additional properties of the optimal solutions to the LQ problem are also established that are analogous to those of the finite-dimensional convex QP. Our results are applicable to problems with convex but not necessarily strictly convex objective functions and with possibly unbounded mixed state–control constraints.