16-745: Optimal Control and Reinforcement Learning
Spring 2026, MW 3:30-4:50 HOA 160
Instructor: Chris Atkeson, cga@cmu.edu
TAs: Krishna Suresh, ksuresh2@andrew
Anoushka Alavilli, apalavil@andrew
Mohit Javale, mjavale@andrew
Office hours TBA.
Zoom (Passcode: 019479)
Sign up for Piazza

Events of Interest

Items of Interest

Course Description

• See last years course and the last time Atkeson taught this course for possible topics.
• Jan 12: Introduction to the course.
  Goal: Introduce course.
  Slides: 16-745-Course-Introduction.pdf
  Zoom recording failed.
  
• Jan 14: Introduction to Gradient-Based Function Optimization.
  Goal: Introduce gradient-based function optimization.
  First 3 Zac lectures.
  Zoom recording (Passcode: U1F#N$#W)
  
• Jan 21: Who are the TAs?
  Zoom recording Passcode: Z?=2hrn5
  
• Jan 26: Class is on ZOOM (link is above).
  2nd order methods: Role of Hessian Slides
  Line Search (Zac lecture 4). Subspace search Slides
  Non-gradient function optimization Slides
  Constrained optimization, Zac lectures 4 - equality constraints, and 5 - inequality constraints, CGA slides
  Zoom recording part 1 Passcode: ex2@?04.
  Zoom recording part 2 Passcode: !r3VSg?s
  
• Jan 28: Stuff
  Linear (LP) and quadratic programs (QP). see last slide
  States etc. Slides
  Dynamic Programming
  Zoom recording Passcode: BOh@6^uC
  
• Feb 2:
  Deriving dynamics
  Linear control A = dF/dx, B = dF/du
  LQR
  DDP
  Zoom recording Passcode: EBN=Mr9u
  
• Feb 4:
  Dynamic Programming
  Zoom recording Passcode: sH?vC@9v
  
• Feb 9:
  Trajectory optimization
  SQP
  A*
  State estimation and KF
  RL w/ neural networks
  Robustness
  
• Feb 11:
  
• Feb 16:
  
• Feb 18:
  
• Feb 23:
  
• Feb 25:
  
• April 20 & 22: Project presentations
• May 5 - Graduating students have to have turned everything in.
• May 10 - All students have to have turned everything in.

Assignments

• Assignment 0 (Due Jan. 20): Send CGA and TAs email: Who are you? Why are you here? What research do you do? Describe any optimization you have done (point me to papers or web pages if they exist). Any project ideas? What topics would you especially like the course to cover?
  Be sure your name is obvious in the email, and you mention the course name or number. I teach more than one course, and a random email from robotlover@cs.cmu.edu is hard for me to process.
• Assignment 1: Due Feb 3.

Project