Survey Paper:
Optimization in Model Predictive Control
M. A. Abbas
FEAS, UOIT, Canada.
Abstract— This paper presents a comprehensive survey of
different optimization methods used in Model Predictive Con-
trol (MPC) systems. We discuss optimization methods for
both linear and non-linear systems and describe advan-
tages/disadvantages for each method and also the specific
conditions in which each method should be used. State of the
Art in this field is described together with current and future
research trends.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Control theory is a branch of engineering and mathematics
which deals with the behaviour of dynamical systems[1].
There are many control strategies in use today like intelligent
control, adaptive control, stochastic control, optimal control
etc. Optimal control is such a control technique in which we
minimize certain cost index to achieve desired performance.
The two types of optimal control techniques are
• Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG)
• Model Predictive Control (MPC)
In this survey we consider optimization problems in Model
Predictive Control technique only because it is most widely
used in industry as opposed to LQG which was termed as
failure. The reasons cited for this failure are [2], [3]:
• constraints
• process nonlinearities
• model uncertainty (robustness)
• unique performance criteria
• cultural reasons (people, education, etc.)
A. Brief History
History of optimal control can be traced back to 1960s
when two ground breaking paper by Kalman appeared
[4], [5]. These papers were in fact the first to introduce
the algorithm for computing the state feedback gain of
the optimal controller for a linear system with a quadratic
performance criterion. Kalman introduced the notions of
controllability and observability, and their exploitation in
the regulator problem, which is considered as principal
contribution of the paper. These papers had a significant
effect on researchers working in the field of optimal
controls. It was this development of of Linear Quadratic
Gaussian (LQG) controller that later led to the development
of Model Predictive Control theory. MPC is basically a
form of LQG controller with added finite prediction horizon
and constraints handling.
Unconst. infinite horizon Linear MPC = simple LQG
Until 70s MPC was only used for plants with slow dy-
namics. It was widely applied in petro-chemical and related
industries where satisfaction of constraints was particularly
important because efficiency demands operating points on or
close to the boundary of the set of admissible states and
control. One of the primary advantages of this technique
is its explicit capability to handle constraints. However, the
fact that the optimisation procedure is to be repeated every
time-step, is the reason that the application of MPC has
been limited to the slow dynamics of systems in the process
industry until recently. The boom in MPC started in 1990s
when faster computer became available together with rapid
development of optimization algorithms. These days MPC is
applied to various types of plants with fast dynamics such
as airplanes, satellites, robotics, automotives etc.
B. Purpose of this survey
With our discussion above, many theoretical issues arise
in MPC by application of control law. One of the major
issues in model predictive control is finding the appropriate
optimization algorithm to be employed in order to reduce
future errors. In our survey, we focus on these varieties of
optimization methods. This is, however, a general survey
covering common optimization techniques used in MPC.
Due to space limitation, we do not go into detail of each
algorithm, rather touch many of them with little detail and
focus on general trends and methodology employed.
C. Organization of paper
This paper is organized in 6 sections. Section I provides
introduction to the problem in hand, whereas Section II
formulates the problem mathematically. In Section III and
IV we survey various optimization methods for Linear and
Nonlinear MPC respectively. Section V details some practical
implementations of MPC in industrial processes. In section
IV we conclude our discussion and predict some future
research trends.
II. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
Model predictive control (MPC) algorithms utilize an
explicit process model to predict the future response of a
plant. At each control interval an MPC algorithm attempts
to optimize future plant behaviour by computing a sequence
of future manipulated variable adjustments. The first input
in the optimal sequence is then sent into the plant, and the
entire calculation is repeated at subsequent control intervals.
Thus optimizer solves an optimization problem during each
sampling interval of the controller.Figure 1 shows the oper-
ation of MPC
Fig. 1. MPC operation concept
Mathematically, if we have Y = process output and u =
controller input
Ydesired (t) = a1 u(t − h) + a2 u(t − 2h) + ......
+b1 y(t − h) + b2 y(t − 2h) + .... (1)
0 0
Ypredicted (t) = a1 u(t − h) + a2 u(t − 2h) + ......
0 0
+b1 y(t − h) + b2 y(t − 2h) + .... (2)
where t = t − h is the time step. Equation (1) describes
system desirable input/output behaviour of our system to
achieve goals within its operational limits. Meanwhile equa-
tion (2) empirically predicts system’s future behaviour based
on system’s past input u(t − h) and output y(t − h).
The error between predicted and desired output can be
calculated as
e(t) = Ypredicted (t) − Ydesired (3)
Uoptimized (t) = ce(t) (4)
Equation (4) scales the error by c and predicts the cal-
culated optimized input Uoptimized (t) based on previous
calculations. Equations (1),(2),(3) and (4) describe system
behaviour for one future time step. We now iterate the four
equations for time t + h,t + 2h,.... to predict system future
I/O profile similar to that shown in Figure 1. By this iteration
we also get associated errors e(t), e(t + h), e(t + 2h) + ...
for each time step. To optimize the system i.e., minimize
the deviation between predicted output of the system from
desired behaviour we need to define the system’s future
residual function.
Residual = e2 (t + ih), i = 0, 1, .., n (5)
Our objective is to use appropriate optimization algorithms
and find future inputs that minimize this residual i.e., find
M in(Residual). With the value of c well defined, our
optimized input Uoptimized is now well defined. The whole
optimization procedure is depicted in Figure 2
Fig. 2. MPC Optimization Flow
To probe further, we divide our discussion into two sec-
tions
• Linear Model Predictive Control
• Non-Linear Model Predictive Control
Both linear and nonlinear systems have specific problem
statements and utilize different optimization methods. It is
important to describe each of them separately. Below is the
brief discussion and optimization methods used for each of
these types of MPC.
III. L INEAR MPC
A. Problem Formulation
Consider a linear time-invariant and discrete-time system
described by following set of equations:
xt+1 = Axt + But (6)
yt = Cxt (7)
subject to the following constraints
ymin ≤ yt ≤ ymax (8)
umin ≤ ut ≤ umax (9)
where xt ∈ Rn ,ut ∈ Rm and yt ∈ Rp are state, input and
output vectors respectively. Subscripts min and max denote
lower and upper bounds respectively. Generally our objective
in linear MPC is minimization of cost function of the form
J = xt Qx + ut Ru
Majority of industrial MPC applications use linear empirical
models, therefore most of MPC products and optimization
algorithms are based on this model type.
B. Optimization Methods
Main challenge in MPC is to find fastest ways of optimiza-
tion as time required for solving on-optimization is very lim-
ited. Thus we need real-time optimal solution. Sometimes we
find a trade off by looking for a suboptimal solution which is
less complex. Constraints are linear. Exact solution methods
are well studied for linear MPC. The optimal solution relies
on a linear dynamic model of the process, respects all input
and output constraints, and minimizes a performance figure.
This is usually expressed as a quadratic or a linear criterion,
so that the resulting optimization problem can be cast as a
quadratic program (QP) or linear program (LP), respectively,
for which a rich variety of efficient active-set and interior-
point solvers are available[10].
1) Linear Programming (LP): A few authors have inves-
tigated MPC optimization based on linear programming [6],
[7], [8]. If we have objective function of the form
N
X −1
minJ = min ||P xN ||∞ + ||Qxk ||∞ + ||Ruk ||∞
k=0
subject to constraints
Gz ≤ W + Sx(t)
then MPC law can be defined by the solution of a Linear
Program[9]. Schechter[9] proved that this is true for any
sum of convex piecewise affine costs.
2) Algebraic Method: If we consider the following objec-
tive function:
Ny −1
X
minJ = x0t+Ny |t P xt+Ny |t + x0t+k|t Qxt+k|t
k=0
+u0t+k Rut+k
subject to constraints
ymin ≤ yt ≤ ymax , k = 1, 2, ..., Nc
umin ≤ ut ≤ umax , k = 0, 1, ..., Nc
and system dynamics
xt+k+1 = Axt+k|t + But+k , k ≥ 0,
yt+k|t + Cxt+k|t , k ≥ 0,
ut+k = Kxt+k|t , Nu ≤ k ≤ Ny ,
where matrices Q = Q0 ≥ 0, R = R0 ≥ 0 and P ≥ 0.
Nu , Ny , Nc are input horizon, output horizon and constraint
horizon respectively such that Ny ≥ Nu and Nc ≤ Ny −
1. We solve this problem (12) repeatedly at eact time t
for current measurement xt and predicted state variable,
xt+1|t , ..., xt+k|t at time steps t + 1, ..., t + k and corre-
(10) sponding optimal control actions U ∗ = {u∗t , ..., u∗t+k−1 } is
obtained. The first predicted input is applied to the system as
first control action i.e., ut = u∗t . This procedure is repeated
at time t + 1 based on new state xt+1 .
The the tuning cost function matrix P and state feedback
gain K is generally used to guarantee closed loop stability of
ststem (12). Algebraic solution of this system depends upon
finding the values of P and Q matrices. P is found by the
solution of discrete Lyapunov equation
P = A0 P A + Q.
Assuming the problem is unconstrained, infinite horizon
i.e., Nc = Nu = Ny = ∞ we can find the state feedback
gain K by solving the Algebraic Ricatti equation:
K = −(R + B 0 P B)−1 B 0 P A,
P = (A + BK)0 P (A + BK) + K 0 RK + Q
Solution of Lyapunov and Algebraic Ricatti equations is
the most popular method to find the values of K and P
matrices[13], [14] thus solving the problem algebraically.
3) Quadratic Programming (QP): Rawlins and Morari
[10], [11], [12] proved that linear MPC can be posed as
Quadratic Programming (QP) problem. If we incorporate the
(11) following realtion
k−1
X
xt+k|t = Ak xt + Aj But+k−1kj
j=0
into system represented by set of equations (12) then it gives
us the following quadratic programming (QP) optimization
problem [18]
1 0 1
J ∗ (xt ) = min U HU + x0t F U + x0t Y x(t) (13)
2 2
subject to constraints
Gz ≤ W + Sx(t)
(12) where U , [u0t , ..., u0t+N u−1 ]0 ∈ Rs , and s , mNu , is
a vector of optimization variables, H = H 0  0, and
H, F, Y, G, W, E matrices are obtained from state constraint
matrix S and input matrix R. MPC is applied by solving
QP problem (13) repeatedly at each time t ≥ 0 for xt , the
current state value .Despite the fact that efficient QP solvers
are available to solve , computing the input ut online may
require significant computational effort [15].
4) Multi Parametric Quadratic Programming (mp-QP):
In MPC our goal is to reduce online optimization time
because system operates in real-time. These days, substantial
research is being carried out to fiend more efficient opti-
mization algorithms. Bemporad et. al. [13], [16], [17] solved
the problem (12) by multiparametric quadratic programming
 TABLE I
IV. N ONLINEAR MPC
A DVANTAGES / D ISADVANTAGES OF OPTIMIZATION METHODS USED IN
L INEAR MPC Model predictive control (MPC), also referred to as mov-
ing horizon control or receding horizon control, has become
Algebraic LP QP Constrained QP an attractive feedback strategy, especially for linear processes
Difficulty Small Medium Large Larger [21]. Many systems are, however, in general inherently
Optimization No Yes Better Better nonlinear. This, together with higher product quality specifi-
Constraints No Yes No Yes
cations and increasing productivity demands, tighter environ-
mental regulations and demanding economical considerations
in the process industry require to operate systems closer to
(mp-QP) which avoids repetitive optimization. They trans- the boundary of the admissible operating region. In these
formed the QP problem (13) into multiparametric optimiza- cases, linear models are often not good enough to describe
tion problem by using the following linear transformation: the process dynamics and nonlinear models have to be used.
Fortunately, considerable progress has been achieved in the
z , U + H −1 F 0 xt last decade that allows to reduce both, computational delays
and approximation errors. This progress is possible by the
where z ∈ Rs is optimization variable parameter. Then QP development of dedicated real-time optimization algorithms
problem (13) can be written as following (mp-QP) problem: for NMPC and moving horizon estimation (MHE) that allows
nowadays applying NMPC to plants with tens of thousands
1
Vz (xt ) = min z 0 Hz (14) of states or to mechatronic applications. By now linear MPC
2 is widely used in industrial applications (Qin and Badgwell;
subject to constraints Garca et al; Morari and Lee; Froisy)[22]. The basic structure
of nonlinear MPC is depicted in Figure 3
Gz ≤ W + Sxt

where xt is vector of parameters and

S = E + GH −1 F 0

The advantage obtained from such a formulation is that xt

only appears in right hand side of constraints and not in
objective function. As opposed to Equations (13) where state
vector xt appears on right hand sides of both constraints and
objective function. Thus in Equation (14) z can be obtained
as affine function of x for complete feasible space of x [15]. Fig. 3. Basic NMPC control loop [21]
Vassilis et.al [15] proved that the set of feasible parameters
Xf ⊆ X is convex, the optimal solution, z(x) : Xf 7−→ The basic NMPC scheme works as follows:
Rs is continuous and piecewise affine, and the optimzation 1) Obtain measurements/estimates of the states of the
objective function Vz (x) : Xf 7−→ R is continuous, convex, system
and piecewise quadratic. 2) Compute an optimal input signal by minimizing a
According to our survey the optimization methods can be given cost function over a certain prediction horizon
tabulated according to Table I. in the future using a model of the system
Normally, limits on the storage space or the computation 3) Implement the first part of the optimal input signal until
time restrict the applicability of model predictive controllers new measurements/estimates of the state are available
(MPC) in many real problems. Morari et. al. [19] introduced 4) Continue with 1
a new approach combining the two paradigms of explicit
and online MPC to overcome their individual limitations. A. Problem Formulation
His developed algorithm computed a piecewise affine ap- Consider a nonlinear discrete time dynamic system de-
proximation of the optimal solution that warm-started an scribed by following set of equations[23]
active set linear programming procedure. A pre-processing
method was introduced that provided hard realtime, stability xk = fts (xk−1 , uk−1 )
and performance guarantees for controller. Doing so, the
researcher was able to trade off some optimization perfor- yk|k−1 = g(xk )
mance in-order to find faster processing time. Advantage
subject to the following constraints
with this method is that its easy to implement and makes on-
line evaluation faster. Disadvantage is that, with increasing U = u ∈ Rm |umin ≤ u ≤ umax
states of system, the controller regions may become large
thus making algorithm difficult to implement. X = x ∈ Rn |xmin ≤ x ≤ xmax
 Where xk is a vector of states, uk is the vector of
manipulated inputs, and yk is a vector of outputs.ts is sample
time; the k|k − 1 subscript notation is used to indicate the
prediction at step k based on measurements at step k-1. Here
umin , umax and xmin , xmax are given constant vectors. The
error in the model is calculated by this equation
dk = yk − yk|k−1
so the objective is to minimize the error as much as possible
to get the optimal output which is given by this equation
xk+1 = fts (xk ), uk
yk+1|k = g(xk+1 ) + dk
Based on this dynamic system form, the following sim-
plified optimal control problem in discrete time is given by
these set of equations
N
X −1
minimize Li (xi , zi , ui ) + E(xN ) (15)
x,z,u
i=0
subject to x0 − x̄o = 0 (16)
xi+1 − fi (xi , zi , ui ) = 0, i = 0, . . . , N − 1, (17)
gi (xi , zi , ui ) = 0, i = 0, . . . , N − 1, (18)
hi (xi , zi , ui ) ≤= 0, i = 0, . . . , N − 1, (19)
r(xN ) ≤ 0. (20)
B. Optimization Methods for Nonlinear MPC
There are many methods to solve these problems, in this
survey we cover two methods to solve these NMPC problems
• Newton Type Optimization
• Numerical Method
1) Newton type optimization: Newton’s method for solu-
tion of a nonlinear equation R(W) =0 starts with an initial
guess that W 0 and generates a series of iterates W k that each
solves a linerazation of the system at the previous iterates,
i.e, for given W k the next iterate W k+1 shall satisfy
R(W k ) + 5(W k )T (W k+1 − W k ) = 0.
Newtons method has locally a quadratic convergance rate
whics is as fast as making any numerical analyst happy[22].If
the jacobian 5R(W k )T is not computed or inverted exactly,
this leads to slower convergance rates , but cheaper iteration,
and gives rise to the larger class of ”Newton type methods”.A
good overview of the field is given in [24].
The NMPC problem as stated above is the specially
structured form of a generic nonlinear program that has the
form ( Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) update[26]
G(X) = 0
minimizeF (X) s.t
X H(X) ≤ 0
for the optimal solution X* must satisfy the famous Karush-
Kuhn-Tucker(KKT) conditions which are:
5x (X ∗ , λ∗ , µ∗ ) = 0 (21)
∗
G(X ) = 0 (22)
0 ≥ H(X ∗ ) ⊥ µ∗ ≥ 0 (23)
Here we have used the defination of Lagrange function
L(X, λ, µ) = F (X) + G(X)T λ + H(X)T µ
and the symbol ⊥ between the two vector valued inequal-
ities in (23) that also the complementarity condition should
hold.
All the Newton type optimization try to linearize the
problem functions and for this they use Sequential Quadratic
Programming (SQP) type method.
a) Sequential Quadratic Programming: First step to
solve the KKT system is to linearize all nonlinear functions
appearing in (21)-(23) by using the conditions of quadratic
prgramming(QP)
(
k G(X k ) + 5G(X k )T (X − X k ) = 0
minimizeFQP (X)s.t
X H(X k ) + 5H(X k )T (X − X k ) ≤ 0
with objective function
k 1
FQP (X) = 5H(X k )T (X) + (X − X k )T (24)
2
52x L(X k , λk , µk )(X − X k )
52x L(X k , λk , µk ) is called the Hessian matrix it is positive
semidefinite, this QP is convex so that global solution can
be found reliably. This general approach to address the non-
linear optimization problem is called Sequential Quadratic
Programming(SQP).
b) Powell’s Classical SQP Method: One of the most
successfully used SQP variants is due to Powell [25]. It
uses exact constraint Jacobians, but replaces the Hessian
matrix 52x L(X k , λk , µk )by an approximation Ak . Each new
Hessian approximation Ak+1 is obtained from the previous
approximation Ak by an update formula that uses the differ-
ence of the Lagrange gradients,
γ = 5x L(X k+1 , λk+1 , µk+1 ) − 5x L(X k , λk+1 , µk+1 )
(25)
Aim of these Quasi-Newton or Variable-Metric methods
is to collect second order information in Ak+1 by satisfying
the secant equation
Ak+1 σ = γ.
The most widely used update formula is the Broyden-
Ak + γγ T Ak σσ T Ak
Ak+1 = −
(γ T σ) (σT Ak σ)
Quasi-Newton methods converge very linearly under mild
conditions, and had a tremendous impact in the field of
nonlinear optimization. Successful implementations are the
packages NPSOL and SNOPT for general NLPs [27], and
MUSCOD-II [28] for optimal control.
c) Constrained Gauss-Newton Method: Another partic-
ularly successful SQP variant the Constrained (or General-
ized) Gauss-Newton method is also based on approximations
of the Hessian. It is applicable when the objective function
is a sum of squares:
F (X) =
1
||R(X)||22
2 (29)
For this case Hessian is defined as
Ak = 5R(X k ) 5 R(X k )T
the corresponding QP objective is defined as:
k 1
||R(X k ) + 5R(k )T (X − X k )||22
FQP (X) =
2
The constrained Gauss-Newton method has only linear
convergance but often with a surprisingly fast contraction
rate. Newton type SQP methods use approximation of Hes-
sain, as well as the constrained jacobians which was analysed
in [31],[29] It uses approximations Ak , bk , ck of the Hessian
matrix whic is already defined in the SQP and also called
”modified gradient”.
ak = 5x L(X k , λk , µk ) − Bk λk − Ck µk (26)
Now QP objective is defined as
1 trajectories differ from the predicted open-loop trajectories,
k
FadjQP (X) = aTk X + (X − X k )T Ak (X − X k )
2
and this is the equation of QP which is solved in each
iteration:
( see infinitely far (or up to his goal), the only thing he can
k G(X k ) + BkT (X − X k ) = 0
minimizeFadjQP (X)s.t
X H(X k ) + CkT (X − X k ) ≤ 0
In this equation it is shown that by using a modified
gradient ak allows to locally converge to solutions of the
original nonliner NLP even in the presence of inequality
constraint Jacobians [29], [30], [31].
2) Numerical Method: When Newton type optimization
is applied to the optimal control problem (15)-(20). By
using sequential approach, where all state variables x, z are
eliminated and the optimization routine only sees the control
variables u, the specific optimal control problem structure
plays a minor role. Thus, often an off-the-shelf code for
nonlinear optimization can be used. This makes practical
implementation very easy and is a major reason why the
sequential approach is used by many practitioners [32].
a) The Linearized Optimal Control Problem: Let us
regard the linearization of the optimal control problem (15)-
(20) within an SQP method, which is a structured QP. It turns
out that due to the dynamic system structure the Hessian of
the Lagrangian function has the same separable structure as
the Hessian of the original objective function (26), so that
the quadratic QP objective is still representable as a sum of
linearquadratic stage costs, which was first observed by Bock
and Plitt [33]. Thus, the QP subproblem has the following
form:
N
X −1
minimize LQP,i (xi , zi , ui ) + EQ P (xN ) (27)
x,z,u
i=0
subject to x0 − x¯0 = 0
(28)
0
xi+1 − fi − Fix xi − Fiz zi − Fiu u = 0, i = 0, . . . , N − 1,
0
gi + Gxi xi + Gzi zi + Gui ui = 0 i = 0 . . . , N − 1,
(30)
0
hi + Hix xi + Hiz zi + Hiu ui ≤ 0, i = 0, . . . , N − 1,
(31)
0
r + RxN ≤ 0.
This partially reduced QP can be post-processed either by
a condensing or a band structure exploiting strategy[32].
C. Advantages and Disadvantages of NMPC
In general one would like to use an infinite prediction
and control horizon, to minimize the performance objective
determined by the cost. However, solving a nonlinear optimal
control problem over an infinite horizon is often computa-
tionally not feasible. Thus typically a finite prediction hori-
zon is used. In this case the actual closed-loop input and state
even if no model plant mismatch and no disturbances are
present. This can be explained considering somebody hiking
in the mountains without a map. The goal of the hiker is to
take the shortest route to his goal. Since he is not able to
do is to plan a certain route based on the current information
(skyline/horizon) and then follow this route. After some time
the hiker re evaluates his route based on the fact that he
might be able to see further. The new route obtained might
be significantly different from the previous route and he will
change his route, even though he has not yet reached the end
of the previous considered route [21]. Basically, the same
approach is employed in a finite horizon NMPC strategy.
At a recalculation instant the future is only predicted over
the prediction horizon. At the next recalculation instant the
prediction horizon moves further, thus allowing obtaining
more information and re-planning.
V. MPC IN I NDUSTRY
For complex constrained multivariable control problems,
model predictive control (MPC) has become the accepted
standard in the process industries [20]. So we found it worth-
while to extend our survey to different practical applications
and technologies being used in the industry.
A. Applications
According to Badgwell [40] there are 4500+ succesful
industrial applications of linear MPC and 50+ applications
of nonlinear MPC. In Table II some applications of MPC are
 TABLE II
MPC APPLICATIONS
Application Sampling Rate Company
Integrated room automation [34] 0.002 Siemens
Adaptive cruise control [35] 2 Chrysler
Mechanical systems with backlash [36] 25
Car automatic steering [37] 30
Automotive hybrid traction control [38] 50
Electronic throttle control [39] 200
DC-DC voltage Inverters [41] 10 × 103
Induction motors torque control [42] 40 × 103
DC-DC converters / power balance [43] 50 × 103
tabulated with emphasis on controller operating frequency,
which is the most critical constraint in the development of
industrial MPC.
B. Commercial Technologies and Softwares
There are many versions of MPC software depending
upon developer group. These different versions are similar
in principles but differ in implementation procedure, model
type, objective function and optimization method used.
Below we list some of the most popular MPC technologies
used in industry and optimization procedure used in each of
them:
• IDCOM (Identification and Command) [44], 1987
– Company: Set point, Inc. USA
– Methodology: Model algorithmic control
– Model Type: Impulse response, linear in inputs or
internal variables.
– Optimization method: QP method
– Other Features: Direct interface to Honeywell MPC
systems, input and output constraints included in
the formulation, 1st generation technology.
• DMC (Dynamic Matrix Control) [45], 1985
– Company: Shell Co.
– Methodology: Dynamic Matrix control
– Model Type: Step response
– Optimization method: LP method
– Other Features: Direct interface to Honeywell MPC
systems, 1st generation technology.
• OPC (Optimum Predictive Control), 1987
– Company: Treiber Controls, Inc.
– Model Type: Step response
– Optimization method: LP method
– Other Features: Controller design and simulation
can be performed on personal computers
• PCT (Predictive Control Technology), 1994
– Company: Profimatics, Inc.
– Model Type: Combines aspects of IDCOM and
DMC
– Optimization method: Solves optimization for one
control move only.
– Other Features: 3rd generation technology.
• HMPC (Horizon multivariable Predictive Control), RM-
PCT (Robust Model Predictive Control Technology),
1991
– Company: Honeywell.
–
– Other Features: Different to any other scheme, no
Ford
data available due to proprietary reasons.
Ford
• DMC-plus and RMPCT, 2000
Ford
– – Company: Honeywell + Profimatics + Treiber Con-
ABB trols
STM
– Model Type: Linear and non linear
– Optimization method: Multiple optimization meth-
ods depending on control objective.
– Other Features: 4th generation cutting edge tech-
nology in use today.
VI. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE R ESEARCH T RENDS
In this paper, we presented a survey of different opti-
mization methods use in linear / non-linear MPC. MPC
technology has progressed steadily since its conception. With
the availability of faster computing power, it has now become
possible to implement better optimization methods (requiring
immense computing power) for control systems. There is
plenty of room to develop new algorithms and prove new
facts in MPC domain. Also, there is a need to extend
current MPC implementations to new areas because existing
implementation domains are uneven. Many researchers are
working to reduce time and find better solutions to opti-
mization problem. MPC is finding new application on small-
scale, fast loops as well as large-scale, networked systems.
Specifically researchers are working in following fields:
• Reducing complexity of online optimization [47]
• Reduce complexity of explicit solution (reduce number
of regions) [48]
• Combination of online and explicit off-line optimization
• MPC Optimization for non-linear plant models
• Robustness of MPC
• MPC for stochastic systems [49]
• Adaptive MPC
• MPC for switched / hybrid systems
• MPC for hierarchical / decentralized structures
In future we hope to see amazing developments to fill
in the vacuum in the field of optimal control systems.
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