Dynamic programming for global control of the acrobot and its chaotic aspect

In this paper, we investigate characteristics of a dynamic programming (DP) algorithm when it is applied to a control problem of a chaotic system. We choose a height task of the Acrobot, which is an underactuated robot. For various reasons, a straightforward method of DP is thought that it is not suitable for such a system. However, DP is attractive because of its conciseness, versatility, and flexibility toward boundary conditions. Our simulation results suggest that to apply DP methods to the task is possible under some conditions. Moreover, even when the conditions are not fulfilled, some interesting behavior of the Acrobot can be found.