ITERATIVE LINEAR QUADRATIC REGULATOR DESIGN FOR NONLINEAR BIOLOGICAL MOVEMENT SYSTEMS

Abstract

This paper presents an Iterative Linear Quadratic Regulator (ILQR) method for locally-optimal feedback control of nonlinear dynamical systems. The method is applied to a musculo-skeletal arm model with 10 state dimensions and 6 controls, and is used to compute energy-optimal reaching movements. Numerical comparisons with three existing methods demonstrate that the new method converges substantially faster and finds slightly better solutions.