Optimal control of Mixed Logical Dynamical systems with Linear Temporal Logic specifications

Recently, linear temporal logic (LTL) has been employed as a tool for formal specification in dynamical control systems. With this formal approach, control systems can be designed to provably accomplish a large class of complex tasks specified via LTL. For this purpose, language generating Buchi automata with finite abstractions of dynamical systems have been used in the literature. In this paper, we take a mathematical programming-based approach to control of a broad class of discrete-time dynamical systems, called mixed logic dynamical (MLD) systems, with LTL specifications. MLDs include discontinuous and hybrid piecewise discrete-time linear systems. We apply these tools for model checking and optimal control of MLD systems with LTL specifications. Our algorithms exploit mixed integer linear programming (MILP) as well as, in the appropriate setting, mixed integer quadratic programming (MIQP) techniques. Our solution approach introduces a general technique useful in representing LTL constraints as mixed-integer linear constraints.