Maximum Entropy Density Control of Discrete-Time Linear Systems with Quadratic Cost

This paper addresses the problem of steering the distribution of the state of a discrete-time linear system to a given target distribution while minimizing an entropy-regularized cost functional. This problem is called a maximum entropy (MaxEnt) density control problem. Specifically, the running cost is given by quadratic forms of the state and the control input, and the initial and final distributions are Gaussian. We first reveal that our problem boils down to solving two Riccati difference equations coupled through their boundary values. Based on them, we give the closed-form expression of the unique optimal policy. Next, we show that the optimal policy for the density control of the time-reversed system can be obtained simultaneously with the forward-time optimal policy. Finally, by considering the limit where the entropy regularization vanishes, we derive the optimal policy for the unregularized density control problem.