Today
Today, I will present most of the content through whiteboard / slides. However, I do have some pointers to code you can run on your own to delve deeper into these topics. See the next section for more information.
Linear Quadratic Regulator in Python
sudo apt-get build-dep python-scipysudo pip install slycotNext, download and install the Python control systems library by following the directions at this site. Now, you are ready to compute an optimal controller for two control problems. One is stabilization of an cartpole inverted pendulum (see this page for a more complete treatment). The other is controlling a vertical takeoff and landing system. The Python scripts for solving these two control problems are available here and here.