HW2: Diving into LQR

Due date: Friday, February 25, 2022

In this homework we'll be delving into LQR and some QP-based MPC. Here's an overview of the problems.

1. Stabilize the quadruped on one leg using LQR.
2. Use TVLQR to stabilize a parallel parking maneuver
3. Use LQR and QP-based MPC to land a rocket

Submission

Please follow these instructions. If you do not follow all of these instructions you will have points deducted from your homework.

1. Fill out your name and AndrewID in src/HW1.jl
2. Commit and push all of your changes to GitHub
3. Create a release called "Submission" with a tag v1.x where x can be any number (start with v1.0, if you need to "patch" your submission change it to v1.1, then v1.2, i.e. follow semantic versioning). For more details, see these instructions.

Grading Policy

See this document for details on our grading policy. Do NOT attempt to hack the autograder. We will be looking at all of your solutions and any attempt to modify the autograder in any way will result in heavy penalties. It's there to help make your lives easier, don't abuse it!

Getting Started

All the homeworks are distributed as Jupyter notebooks. Follow these instructions to get everything set up.

1. Install Julia. Download v1.5.3 from the Julia website. Extract the binaries onto a stable location on your computer, and add the /bin folder to your system path.
2. Clone this repo, and open a terminal in the root directory
3. Start a Julia REPL in your terminal using julia. This should work as long as the binaries are on your system path.
4. Install the IJulia using the Julia package manager. In the REPL, enter the package manager using ], then enter add IJulia to add it to your system path.
5. In the REPL (hit backspace to exit the package manager), enter using IJulia
6. Launch the notebook using notebook() or jupyterlab()

Check out Kevin's video walkthrough for HW0 for more details.

Tips for Success

These homeworks can be pretty challenging, which is why we provide 2 weeks to complete them. Here are some tips for success:

1. Start early (Question 3 takes a lot of time!!!)
2. Commit and push changes often. Don't be afraid to use git branches. This is super helpful if you ever need to go back to a previous version because you broke something.
3. Get with a study group!
4. Keep your code clean. Avoid global variables. If you get odd behavior, consider restarting your kernel.
5. Come to office hours

Running the Autograder

From a terminal in the root of your repository, run the following command:

julia --project=. test/runtests.jl

You can select which questions to grade by passing them in as arguments. For example, to grade questions 1 and 3, use:

julia --project=. test/runtests.jl 1 3

We will use code very similar to the autograder included in the student repos to grade your homeworks, so if your code passes the autograder locally on your computer, you should be good!

Questions / Issues

If you have questions as you work through the homework, please post to the hw2 folder on Pizza.

Adding the Upstream Repo

We may release changes to the homework periodically if errors or bugs are found. Follow these instructions for linking your repo to the original template and pulling changes. It's always a good idea to branch your code before pulling from the upstream repo in case something goes wrong or the merge is particularly nasty.