CoVO-MPC: Theoretical Analysis of Sampling-based MPC and Optimal Covariance Design

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Yi, Zeji, Pan, Chaoyi, He, Guanqi, Qu, Guannan, Shi, Guanya
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Yi, Zeji
Pan, Chaoyi
He, Guanqi
Qu, Guannan
Shi, Guanya
author_facet Yi, Zeji
Pan, Chaoyi
He, Guanqi
Qu, Guannan
Shi, Guanya
contents Sampling-based Model Predictive Control (MPC) has been a practical and effective approach in many domains, notably model-based reinforcement learning, thanks to its flexibility and parallelizability. Despite its appealing empirical performance, the theoretical understanding, particularly in terms of convergence analysis and hyperparameter tuning, remains absent. In this paper, we characterize the convergence property of a widely used sampling-based MPC method, Model Predictive Path Integral Control (MPPI). We show that MPPI enjoys at least linear convergence rates when the optimization is quadratic, which covers time-varying LQR systems. We then extend to more general nonlinear systems. Our theoretical analysis directly leads to a novel sampling-based MPC algorithm, CoVariance-Optimal MPC (CoVo-MPC) that optimally schedules the sampling covariance to optimize the convergence rate. Empirically, CoVo-MPC significantly outperforms standard MPPI by 43-54% in both simulations and real-world quadrotor agile control tasks. Videos and Appendices are available at \url{https://lecar-lab.github.io/CoVO-MPC/}.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_07369
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CoVO-MPC: Theoretical Analysis of Sampling-based MPC and Optimal Covariance Design
Yi, Zeji
Pan, Chaoyi
He, Guanqi
Qu, Guannan
Shi, Guanya
Machine Learning
Robotics
Sampling-based Model Predictive Control (MPC) has been a practical and effective approach in many domains, notably model-based reinforcement learning, thanks to its flexibility and parallelizability. Despite its appealing empirical performance, the theoretical understanding, particularly in terms of convergence analysis and hyperparameter tuning, remains absent. In this paper, we characterize the convergence property of a widely used sampling-based MPC method, Model Predictive Path Integral Control (MPPI). We show that MPPI enjoys at least linear convergence rates when the optimization is quadratic, which covers time-varying LQR systems. We then extend to more general nonlinear systems. Our theoretical analysis directly leads to a novel sampling-based MPC algorithm, CoVariance-Optimal MPC (CoVo-MPC) that optimally schedules the sampling covariance to optimize the convergence rate. Empirically, CoVo-MPC significantly outperforms standard MPPI by 43-54% in both simulations and real-world quadrotor agile control tasks. Videos and Appendices are available at \url{https://lecar-lab.github.io/CoVO-MPC/}.
title CoVO-MPC: Theoretical Analysis of Sampling-based MPC and Optimal Covariance Design
topic Machine Learning
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.07369