Convex reformulations for a special class of nonlinear MPC problems

Abstract

We show how the solution to NMPC problems for a special type of input-affine discrete-time systems can be obtained by reformulating the underlying non-convex optimal control problem in terms of a finite number of convex subproblems. The reformulation is facilitated by exact (input-state) linearization, which is shown to provide beneficial properties for the treated class of systems. We characterize possible types of the resulting convex subproblems and illustrate our approach with three numerical examples.