Schwarz decomposition for parallel minimum lap-time problems: evaluating against ADMM

The Minimum Lap Time Problem (MLTP) remains a significant area of research, particularly in the motorsport context. This form of Optimal Control Problem (OCP) aims to minimise lap times on a specific track with a given vehicle. Various complexities in both vehicle and track models are employed across the literature to address optimal trajectory planning. While previous works have tackled MLTP as a singular task using a serial approach, the increasing model complexity and horizon length demands the utilisation of parallelisation techniques. This paper introduces a novel application of the Overlapping Schwarz Decomposition algorithm to address the MLTP. The algorithm divides the problem into smaller sub-problems based on different sectors of a track, distributing them among multiple processors. We validate and compare the Schwarz approach against a serial approach and the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) in solving MLTP with over 2.5 million variables. Despite the general efficiency improvement of parallelisation compared to the serial approach, the Schwarz algorithm demonstrates superior speed, accuracy and robustness compared to ADMM. As a result of our findings, it emerges as the preferred choice when large-scale MLTPs need to be solved.