Low-Infrastructure Real-Time Embedded Control via Variational Integrators

This paper presents a discrete time receding horizon control scheme that leverages the numerical properties of a variational integrator to facilitate real-time control generation on an embedded system. The variational integrator employed is well-suited to classical estimation and control algorithms, e.g. LQR, extended Kalman filters, and particle filters. The structure-preserving properties of this variational integrator lead to increased performance of estimation and control routines, especially in low-bandwidth applications. Several experimental examples are presented that illustrate the features of this receding horizon control scheme when leveraging the desirable numerical properties of the variational integrator.