Optimal Feedback Law Recovery by Gradient-Augmented Sparse Polynomial Regression

Abstract: A sparse regression approach for the computation of high-dimensional optimal feedback laws arising in deterministic nonlinear control is proposed. The approach exploits the control-theoretical link between Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman PDEs characterizing the value function of the optimal control problems, and first-order optimality conditions via Pontryagin's Maximum Principle. The latter is used as a representation formula to recover the value function and its gradient at arbitrary points in the space-time domain through the solution of a two-point boundary value problem. After generating a dataset consisting of different state-value pairs, a hyperbolic cross polynomial model for the value function is fitted using a LASSO regression. An extended set of low and high-dimensional numerical tests in nonlinear optimal control reveal that enriching the dataset with gradient information reduces the number of training samples, and that the sparse polynomial regression consistently yields a feedback law of lower complexity.