Suboptimal Distributed LQR Design for Physically Coupled Systems

In this paper, we propose a distributed LQR control method, applicable to physically coupled systems, with a general-type cost function. Thanks to a novel suboptimal but distributed cost-to-go matrix update that enforces block-diagonality, the LQR gain matrix is structured, making the overall control scheme distributed. The proposed control scheme is totally distributed, scalable, and has self-tuning capabilities. The theoretical properties, including the stability of the so-obtained sub-optimal control scheme, are investigated. A case study is finally shown to illustrate the potentialities of the current scheme.