Output feedback receding horizon control of constrained systems

This paper considers output feedback control of linear discrete-time systems with convex state and input constraints which are subject to bounded state disturbances and output measurement errors. We show that the non-convex problem of finding a constraint admissible affine output feedback policy over a finite horizon, to be used in conjunction with a fixed linear state observer, can be converted to an equivalent convex problem. When used in the design of a time-varying robust receding horizon control law, we derive conditions under which the resulting closed-loop system is guaranteed to satisfy the system constraints for all time, given an initial state estimate and bound on the state estimation error. When the state estimation error bound matches the minimal robust positively invariant (mRPI) set for the system error dynamics, we show that this control law is actually time-invariant, but its calculation generally requires solution of an infinite-dimensional optimization problem. Finally, using an invariant outer approximation to the mRPI error set, we develop a time-invariant control law that can be computed by solving a finite-dimensional, tractable optimization problem at each time step, which guarantees that the closed-loop system satisfies the constraints for all time.