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September i&M, Z W 2 0 Glasgow, SmUand. U.K.

Nonlinear Receding Horizon Control of an RC Hovercraft

Hiroaki Seguchi and Toshiyuki Ohtsuka
Department of Computer-Controlled Mechanical Systems
Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University
2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 5650871, Japan
ohtsuka@mech.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp

Abstract

This paper describes position control of an RC hov-

ercraft. The hovercraft has two b e d thrusters, and
the thrusters generate thrusts of only three discrete
values, that is, forward, backward and zero. Non-
linear receding horizon control is applied to position
control of the hovercraft with the discretevalued in-
puts approximated by constrained continuous-valued
inputs. Although the nonlinear receding horizon con-
trol requires real-time constrained optimization, a fast
algorithm is successfully implemented for.the hardware
experiment.

Figure 1: RC hovercraft,
1 Introduction

Position control of an underactuated vehicle is a diffi-

cult problem in general. Especially, if there is no fric-
tion in the environment, an underactuated vehicle often
drifts in the direction without actuation. For example,
it is di5cult to control positions of such vehicles as a
satellite, a hovercraft, and an airship unless sufficient
number of thrusters or torquers are available. Since
a large attitude motion leads to inherent nonlinear dy-
namics, a nonlinear control method is essential for their
position control.
Nonlinear receding horizon control (model predictive
control) is one of potential approaches to feedback con-
trol of nonlinear systems and has been successfully a p
plied to chemical processes in recent years (see, e.g.,
11, 21). However, it is still a challenging problem to a p
ply nonlinear receding horizon control to such systems
with fast dynamics as mechanical systems, since a non-
linear optimal control problem over a finite future has
to be solved at eaeh time in nonlinear receding horizon
control. Therefore, efficient and reliable numerical al-
gorithms are necessary for nonlinear receding horizon
control.
The main objective of this paper is t o demonstrate a
real-time algorithm of nonlinear receding horizon con-
trol for an underactuated vehicle in a hardware experi-
ment. We employ an RC hovercraft for the experiment.
The hovercraft has two thrusters that are k e d on the
body and generate thrusts of only three discrete values.
In comparison with a previous study [3] in the litera-
ture, the present hovercraft has less degrees of freedom
for atuation and is more difficult to control. A nonlin-
ear receding horizon control problem is formulated for
the hovercraft with a quadratic performance index and
constraints on the thrusts. The discrete-valued thrusts
are approximated with continnowvalued thrusts that
are nearly bang-bang. An algorithm called C/GNRES
141 is employed to solve the problem in real time with
the sampling period of 1/120 [sec],which is specified by
the frame rate of the CCD camera used in the experi-
ment. The results of simulation and experiment show
that nonlinear receding horizon control is implemented
successfully in real time.
2 Experimental Setup
We employ an RC hovercraft (Taiyo Toy Ltd., Typhoon
T-3, 356 [mm] x 212 [mm] x 142 [nun])shown in Fig.
1 on a planar ground as the system to be controlled.
The posit.ion of the center of mass and attitude angle of
the hovercraft are denoted by (+, y) and 8, respectively
(Fig. 2). The thrusts generated by the thrusters are

0-78W-7385-31Mlt17.W 02002 IEEE 1076

 9 effect of no& in the finite difference approximation.
m A computer (CPU AMD Athlon, 900 MHa) processes
the measured data, computes the control inputs with a
real-time algorithm for nonlinear receding horizon con-
trol and sends the command signal to the hovercraft
through a D/A converter and the transmitter (Fig. 3).

3 'Nonlinear Receding Horizon Control

In nonlinear receding horizon control, control perfor-

Figure 2 Model of the hovercraft.
mance is optimized at each time over a finite future.
Namely, a performance index with a moving horizon
is minimbed, which requires real-time optimization.
Moreover, since the control input takes only three dis.
Crete values in the experiment, we approximate the
discretevalued input with a constrained continuous
valued input. That is, the following inequality con-
straints are imposed.

ER
I Uh
ub 6
5 U1 5 Ua
212 6 u o '
(4)

where U, = 0.342 [NI and U* = -0.121 [NI. The in-

equality constraints can he converted into equality con-
straints by introducing dummy inputs VI and 212 as fol-
lows.

Figure 3 Experimental setup.

C(2,U) :=
[
(U, - U,")2
(U2 - Ua.)2
+
+
U12
V2Z
-
- (U. - ILau)t
U@")

=o,
I (5)
where uav = (ua+ub)/2, and U is the augmented input
vector deiined by U = [ U ~ , U Z , U ~ ,The
V ~ equality
]~.
denoted by u1 and u2, the mass and moment of inertia constraints can also depend on the state in general.
of the hovercraft are denoted by M and I, respectively.
The equations of motion are given by Then, the performance index J of nonlinear receding
horizon control is chosen as
MX = UI + uz
COS@ COS@, (1) t+T
My = U, sin8 + uzsin8, (2) J = rp(r(t + T))+Jt L(s(t'), u(t'))dt',
I8 = ulr - u g . (3) 1
io(z) = 2(" - =t)TS,(x -If),
The state equation is obtained from the equations of 1
motion with the state vector x = [x,y,@?x,y, @IT, The L(I, U) SI(= z +U ~ R U
- z ~ ) ~ Q-(sf)
thrusters of the hovercraft generate thrust of only three - TlVl - T2V21,
discrete values, that is, 0.342 [NI, -0.121 [NI and zero
because the transmitter sends only an onfoffcommand. where T is the horizon length, zf the objective state,
Other parameters are: I = 0.0125 [kgm'], A4 = 0.894 Sf, Q, R,rl and r2 are weights. The penalties on VI
[kg], and r = 0.0485 [m]. and z12 are added to avoid indefiniteness in the signs
of the dummy inputs in Eq. (5). If all weights on the
Two electric bulbs are put on the hovercraft, and their inputs are zero, the minimum principle implies that
positions are measured by an optical position sensor both continuous-valued inputs and discretevalued in-
(OKK Inc., Video Tracker G280) to calculate the PO puts lead to an identical optimal control of bang-bang
sition (s,y)of the center of mass aqd the attitude type, although zero weights on inputs are not advisable
angle 8 of t.he hovercraft. The translational velocity from the viewpoint of numerical computation. There
and angular velocity are obtained with finite difference fore, if the weights on the inputs are sufliciently small,
approximation from the position and attitude angle. the optimal control with the continuous-valued inputs
Low-pass filters are &o implemented to reduce the is nearly bang-bang and is expected to approximate

1077
the optimal control with the discretevalued inputs of
tua,U), 0). Once the continuous-valued inputs are cal-
culated, their discretization gives the actual discrete-
valud inputs.
Given the actual state z(t) as the initial state for the
optimal control problem, the optimal control is deter-
+
mined over the horizon [t,t T ] so as t.o m i n i i e the
performance index, and only its initial value at time t
is used as the actual input to the system. Since the
optimal control depends on the initial state s(t),this
strategy results in a state feedback control law. The
optimal trajectory starting from z(t) is not necessarily
identical to the actual trajectory of the closed-loop s y s
tem over [t,t +TI,since the optimal control is updated
at each time.
Closed-loop stability of nonlinear receding horizon con-
trol has been studied extensively in recent years (see,
e.g., [SI).However, existing stability conditions are still
conservative, and a closed-loop system is often stable
without satisfyiug them. It is almost hopeless to guar-
antee the stability analytically in the present problem
because the system is highly nonlinear and only the
discrete-valued control inputs are available. S i c e the
linearized system is not stabilizable, we cannot guar-
antee even local stability near the objective state. Al-
though analytic approaches are not available, the real-
time optimization is expected to result in the best p o s
sible control performance with respect to the given per-
formance index.
4 Real-Time Algorithm
Real-time algorithm is also a major issue in n o d i -
ear receding horizon control. An algorithm called
CIGhlRES [SIis employed in this experiment to solve
the optimal control problem at each time. We divide
the horizon into N steps and discretize the optimal
control problem with the forward difference as follows:
4 + i ( t ) = zf(t) + f(lf(t),Uf(t))Ar, (6)
43)= d t ) , (7)
C ( z f ( t ) , u f ( t=
) ) 0, (8)
where f(+,U) denotes the vector field ofthe state equ%
tion, AT := T I N , sf(t) corresponds to the discrete
time trajectory starting from s ( t ) at i = 0. Since t,he
horizon T depends on time t in general, so does AT.
Note that only the problem over the horizon is d i s
cretized, and the dependence on t remains continuous
at this stage of problem formulation. Given the ini-
tial state of the discretized problem, z;(t)= z(t),the
control sequence {uf(t)}&' is optimized at each time
1078
t. The actual control input to the system is given by
u(t)= ugt).
Let N denote the Hamiltonian defined by
H(a,X,u,p) :=L(z,U)+XTf(z,U)+~=c(s,U),
where X denotes the costate, and p denotes the La-
grange multiplier associated with the equality con-
straint. The first-order necessary conditions for the
sequences of optimal control {U; (t)}E;', multiplier
{ p f ( t ) ) z i ' and Costate { A l ( t ) } c oare obtained by the
calculus of variation as
= 0,
NU(zf(t),~~'(t),Uf(t),pf(t)) (10)
= X+lN
+ H;(zf(t), X:+l(t), (11)
a f ( t ) P.f(t))AT,
,
U t ) = rp:(zi(t)). (12)
The sequences of the optimal control {uf(t)}E;l and
the multiplier {pf(t)}&' have to satisfy Eqs. (6) - (8),
(10) - ( E ) , which defines a two-point boundary-value
problem (TPBVP) for the discretized optimal control
problem. It should be noted that the TPBVP for the
discretized problem is identical to a finite difference a p
proximation of the TPBVP for the original continuous-
time problem. Therefore, the solution of the discretized
problem converges to the solution of the continuous-
time problem as N -+ m under mild conditions 161.
Other high order discretization schemes can also be
employed at the expense of simplicity.
We define a vector of the inputs and multipliers as
U ( t ):= [UGT(t)j g ( t )U ; = @ ) p;T(t)
. . . ~ f y T _ ~~( t $) - ~ ( tE )R"
],~
where m := m,, +
m. with m, and m, denoting the
projection Po : R" R"- as -
dimensions of U and p, respectively. We also define a
Po(U) :=U;.
For a given U ( t ) and z ( t ) ,{ s f ( t ) } g oare calculated
recursively by Eqs. (6) and (7), and then, { ~ ( t ) ) ~ o
are also calculated recursively from i = N to i = 0 by
Eqs. (11) and (12). Since eT(t) and Af(t) are deter-
mined b y z ( t ) and U ( t )through Eqs. (6), (7),(11) and
(12), Eqs. (8) and (10) can be regarded as an equation
defined as
:= I I
=O. (13)
The equation also depends on time t through AT in
general. If the equation is solved with respect to V ( t )
for the measured ~ ( tat) each timet, then the control
input u(t) = Po(U(t))is determined.
Since such an iterative method as Newton method is
n u m e r i d y expensive to solve Eq. (13) in real time,
we employ another equivalent condition to trace the
time-dependent solution as follows.
i.(U(t),I(t)>t)=
F(U(O),I(O),O) = 0,
- c ~ ( w ) > 4 ~ ) , tc)>, 0,
where the right-hand side in the first equation is added
to stabilize F = 0. If the Jacobian Fu is nonsingular,
we obtain a Merentid equation of U ( t ) as
U = F;'(-/F - FIB - F'). (14)
Then, U ( t ) can be updated without any successive
approximation by integrating Eq. (14) in real time,
which is a kind of the continuation method [7]. A sim-
ple method for initializing U ( 0 ) is to choose a t i m e
dependent horizon T ( t )as a smooth function such that
T ( 0 ) = 0 and T ( t ) -* Tf (t -t CO), e.g., T ( t ) =
Tf(l - e-"') (Tf,a > 0). Then, the equation on U(0)
reduces to an equation on only ui(0) and &(O), which
can be solved more easily than the original equation.
Since Eq. (14) still involves numerically expensive o p
erations to solve the linear equation arsociated with
F;', we also employ the GMRES (Generalized Mini-
mum RESidual) [8]with forward difference approxima-
tion for products of Jacobians and vectors. GMRES is
a kind of Krylov subspace methods for linear equations.
Error analysis of the entire continuation/GMR.ES al-
gorithm (41 shows that the error lIFl1 is bounded under
some assumptions if the parameter is chosen so that
0 < CAt 5 ?At with 1 5 <At < 2, where At denotes
the time step of numerical integration of Eq. (14) and
corresponds to the sampling period in the hardware
experiment.
5 Experimental Results
The real-time algorithm in the previous section is coded
in C and is implemented in the computer with the sam-
pling period of 1/120 [sec], which is specified by the
frame rate of the CCD camera. Numerical simulation
is also carried out, and its results are compared with
the experimental results. The simulation program in C
is generated by an automatic code generation system
called AutoGenU [9]. AutoGenU is a Mathematica p r e
gram to generate a simulation program for nonlinear r e
ceding horizon control utilizing Mathematica packages
Format [lo], Optimize 1111 and a Mathematica com-
mand Splice [14. AutoGenU generates a C source
1079
5$11_1 .
..................................................
~,)(
.......................................................
7.2 *I
4
~
m
r". ,
.
I
$6 h
(a) S i d a t i o n with (b) Experiment with
continuowvalued inputs, discrete-valued inputs.
Figure 4: Time histories of onedimensional motion.
file by processing an input file given by a user. The
input file defines the state equation, performance in-
dex, simulation conditions, and so on. The experiment
program can also be developed easily by modifying the
generated simulation program.
First, results of the experiment and simulation
are compared for simple one-dimensional motion
to evaluate the approximate solution method with
the constrained continuousvalued inputs. Figure
4 compares time histories of the Simulation with
the continuousvalued inputs and the experiment
with the discretevalued inputs. The parameters
in the performance index are chosen as: T =
Tf(l - e-*'), Tf = 0.5 [sec], a = 1, Sf =
diag[8.85,0,0,1.85,0,0], Q = diag[8.85,0,0,1.85,0,0],
R = diag[0.01,0.01,0.01,0.01], T I = T Z = 0.1, and
zf = 0. The inltialstate is IO = [-0.667,0,0,0, 0,OjT.
It is confirmed from the figure that the control input in
the simulation is nearly bang-bang, as is expected..The
responses of the states are similar between the simula-
tion and experiment, although chattering is observed
in the control input of the experiment to keep the hov-
ercraft near the objective state.
Next, results of the experiment and simulation for
two-dimensional motion are compared in Figs. 5
and 6. The simulation is also carried out with
the discretevalued inputs to predict the experi-
mental result. The parameters in the performance
index are chosen BS: T = Tf(1 - e-='), Tf = 1
[sec], a = 1, Sf = diag[5,15,0.05,1,1,0.01],
Q = diag[5,10,0.1,1,1,0.01], R =
diag[O.Ol,0.01,0.001,0.001], r 1 = rz = 0.1,
and z, = 0. The initial state is o0 =
[-0.38,0.30,0.052,0.0092,-0.0053,0.0021] T.
Figure 5 shows that the simulation result predicts
 D., 1 Dll , 1

. . . ...; .............. .:

(a) Trajectory of simulation.

0.4.. ....... ~ . . . . . . . . . . . $ . . . . . . . . . .:.

-E
I

Figure 5: Time histories of the hovercraft; solid lines: >

experiment. dashed lines: simulation.

roughly the experimental result. Although the ohjec- L

tive state is not asymptotically stable because the s y s
tem is nonholonomic, the state stays near the Objective
state. Therefore, it is concluded that nonlinear reced-
ing horizon control is successhlly implemented in real
time and achieves a sort of practical stability.
Figure 6 shows trajectories of the hovercraft until 5.8
[sec] in the simulation and experiment, respectively.
The hovercraft is drawn every 0.92 [sec] to indicate its
attitude angle, and thrusts of the two thrusters are ex-
pressed as straight lines to indicate the magnitude and
direction of the thrusts. The hovercraft is successfully
driven toward the origin without thrusts in the lateral
direction.
6 Conclusions
Nonlinear receding horizon control has been applied to
an RC hovercraft with only two k e d thrusters. The
system dynamics is highly nonlinear, and the thrusters
generate thrusts of only three discrete values. A real-
time algorithm called C/GMRES has successfully been
implemented for the hardware experiment. The con-
strained optimal control problem is solved in real time
with the sampling period of 1/120 [sec] in spite of noises
and m o d e l e d dynamics in the real world. Although
asymptotic stability of the objective state is not guar-
anteed because the system is nonholonomic, nonlinear
receding horizon control drives the state sufficiently
close to the objective state, which shows practical ef-
-04 4.2 0
x [ml
(h) Trajectory of experiment
Figure 6 Trajectories of the hovercraft until 5.8 [sec];
(a) simulation, (h) experiment. The hover-
craft is drawn every 0.92 [sec].
fectiveness of the control method,
Acknowledgements
This research is partially supported by the Research
Fund of the Kurata Memorial Science and Technol-
ogy Promotion Foundation and Grants for Receivers
of Doctorates by the Foundation for C&C Promotion.
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