Error estimates for the Euler discretization of an optimal control problem with first-order state constraints

International audienceWe study the error introduced in the solution of an optimal control problem with first order state constraints, for which the trajectories are approximated with a classical Euler scheme. We obtain order one approximation results in the L ∞ norm (as opposed to the order 2/3 obtained in the literature). We assume either a strong second order optimality condition, or a weaker one in the case where the state constraint is scalar, satisfies some hypotheses for junction points, and the time step is constant. Our technique is based on some homotopy path of discrete optimal control problems that we study using perturbation analysis of nonlinear programming problems

Error estimates for a tree structure algorithm solving finite horizon control problems

In the Dynamic Programming approach to optimal control problems a crucial role is played by the value function that is characterized as the unique viscosity solution of a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. It is well known that this approach suffers of the "curse of dimensionality" and this limitation has reduced its practical in real world applications. Here we analyze a dynamic programming algorithm based on a tree structure. The tree is built by the time discrete dynamics avoiding in this way the use of a fixed space grid which is the bottleneck for high-dimensional problems, this also drops the projection on the grid in the approximation of the value function. We present some error estimates for a first order approximation based on the tree-structure algorithm. Moreover, we analyze a pruning technique for the tree to reduce the complexity and minimize the computational effort. Finally, we present some numerical tests

Reduced Order Optimal Control of the Convective FitzHugh-Nagumo Equation

In this paper, we compare three model order reduction methods: the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) for the optimal control of the convective FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) equations. The convective FHN equations consists of the semi-linear activator and the linear inhibitor equations, modeling blood coagulation in moving excitable media. The semilinear activator equation leads to a non-convex optimal control problem (OCP). The most commonly used method in reduced optimal control is POD. We use DEIM and DMD to approximate efficiently the nonlinear terms in reduced order models. We compare the accuracy and computational times of three reduced-order optimal control solutions with the full order discontinuous Galerkin finite element solution of the convection dominated FHN equations with terminal controls. Numerical results show that POD is the most accurate whereas POD-DMD is the fastest

Optimal Control of Convective FitzHugh-Nagumo Equation

We investigate smooth and sparse optimal control problems for convective FitzHugh-Nagumo equation with travelling wave solutions in moving excitable media. The cost function includes distributed space-time and terminal observations or targets. The state and adjoint equations are discretized in space by symmetric interior point Galerkin (SIPG) method and by backward Euler method in time. Several numerical results are presented for the control of the travelling waves. We also show numerically the validity of the second order optimality conditions for the local solutions of the sparse optimal control problem for vanishing Tikhonov regularization parameter. Further, we estimate the distance between the discrete control and associated local optima numerically by the help of the perturbation method and the smallest eigenvalue of the reduced Hessian

A rational deferred correction approach to parabolic optimal control problems

The accurate and efficient solution of time-dependent PDE-constrained optimization problems is a challenging task, in large part due to the very high dimension of the matrix systems that need to be solved. We devise a new deferred correction method for coupled systems of time-dependent PDEs, allowing one to iteratively improve the accuracy of low-order time stepping schemes. We consider two variants of our method, a splitting and a coupling version, and analyze their convergence properties. We then test our approach on a number of PDE-constrained optimization problems. We obtain solution accuracies far superior to that achieved when solving a single discretized problem, in particular in cases where the accuracy is limited by the time discretization. Our approach allows for the direct reuse of existing solvers for the resulting matrix systems, as well as state-of-the-art preconditioning strategies