MPC is a powerful approach to cope with system constraints while optimizing a desired performance criterion, by embedding a finite-horizon, constrained optimal control problem in the controller. This control technique allows one to take into account multiple inputs and outputs, nonlinear dynamics, safety constraints, and various performance indicators in a rather intuitive way.
As a matter of fact, MPC is probably the most powerful and general advanced control approach that exists nowadays. Its main drawbacks are related to the need to solve a -possibly very complex- numerical optimization problem on-line.
In the field of MPC, the laboratory carries out theoretical research in the following directions: