Iterative State- and Control-Dependent Model Predictive Control: A Jacobian-Free Formulation for Constrained Nonlinear Systems

Abstract

This paper presents an iterative model predictive control algorithm that stabilizes constrained nonlinear systems without evaluating a single plant derivative. By factoring the exact nonlinear dynamics into a pseudo-linear form using state- and control-dependent coefficients (SCDCs), we replace the standard nonconvex optimization with a sequence of constrained linear-quadratic programs. Refreezing the coefficient matrices along the previously predicted trajectory drives the iteration. Near the origin, we prove this sequence contracts to a unique fixed point. We explicitly bound the number of iterations required to reach any stopping tolerance, and we quantify the distance from the fixed point to a true Karush-Kuhn-Tucker point, showing this optimality gap vanishes quadratically as the state approaches the origin. Inflating the discrete algebraic Riccati equation generates terminal ingredients that guarantee recursive feasibility and asymptotic stability, even when the solver terminates early. We adapt the terminal penalty online, proving it remains uniformly bounded, and we secure output feedback through the block-observable canonical form, which extracts the exact system state directly from past inputs and outputs. Retaining the block-banded structure of the subproblem forces the computational cost to scale linearly with the horizon length $\ell$. This $O(\ell )$ complexity matches the iterative linear quadratic regulator (iLQR) but sharply undercuts the $O({\ell }^3)$ scaling of dense sequential quadratic programming (SQP). Numerical studies on a saturated quadrotor, a nonholonomic integrator, and a nonminimum-phase plant illustrate the theoretical bounds and map how the algorithm compares with iLQR, SQP, and linear-parameter-varying MPC.