Galerkin approximations for the optimal control of nonlinear delay differential equations

Optimal control problems of nonlinear delay differential equations (DDEs) are considered for which we propose a general Galerkin approximation scheme built from Koornwinder polynomials. Error estimates for the resulting Galerkin-Koornwinder approximations to the optimal control and the value function, are derived for a broad class of cost functionals and nonlinear DDEs. The approach is illustrated on a delayed logistic equation set not far away from its Hopf bifurcation point in the parameter space. In this case, we show that low-dimensional controls for a standard quadratic cost functional can be efficiently computed from Galerkin-Koornwinder approximations to reduce at a nearly optimal cost the oscillation amplitude displayed by the DDE's solution. Optimal controls computed from the Pontryagin's maximum principle (PMP) and the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation (HJB) associated with the corresponding ODE systems, are shown to provide numerical solutions in good agreement. It is finally argued that the value function computed from the corresponding reduced HJB equation provides a good approximation of that obtained from the full HJB equation.Comment: 29 pages. This is a sequel of the arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.0042

Linear Hamilton Jacobi Bellman Equations in High Dimensions

The Hamilton Jacobi Bellman Equation (HJB) provides the globally optimal solution to large classes of control problems. Unfortunately, this generality comes at a price, the calculation of such solutions is typically intractible for systems with more than moderate state space size due to the curse of dimensionality. This work combines recent results in the structure of the HJB, and its reduction to a linear Partial Differential Equation (PDE), with methods based on low rank tensor representations, known as a separated representations, to address the curse of dimensionality. The result is an algorithm to solve optimal control problems which scales linearly with the number of states in a system, and is applicable to systems that are nonlinear with stochastic forcing in finite-horizon, average cost, and first-exit settings. The method is demonstrated on inverted pendulum, VTOL aircraft, and quadcopter models, with system dimension two, six, and twelve respectively.Comment: 8 pages. Accepted to CDC 201

Spectral methods for CFD

One of the objectives of these notes is to provide a basic introduction to spectral methods with a particular emphasis on applications to computational fluid dynamics. Another objective is to summarize some of the most important developments in spectral methods in the last two years. The fundamentals of spectral methods for simple problems will be covered in depth, and the essential elements of several fluid dynamical applications will be sketched

Sparse spectral methods for integral equations and equilibrium measures

In this thesis, we introduce new numerical approaches to two important types of integral equation problems using sparse spectral methods. First, linear as well as nonlinear Volterra integral and integro-differential equations and second, power-law integral equations on d-dimensional balls involved in the solution of equilibrium measure problems. These methods are based on ultraspherical spectral methods and share key properties and advantages as a result of their joint starting point: By working in appropriately weighted orthogonal Jacobi polynomial bases, we obtain recursively generated banded operators allowing us to obtain high precision solutions at low computational cost. This thesis consists of three chapters in which the background of the above-mentioned problems and methods are respectively introduced in the context of their mathematical theory and applications, the necessary results to construct the operators and obtain solutions are proved and the method's applicability and efficiency are showcased by comparing them with current state-of-the-art approaches and analytic results where available. The first chapter gives a general scope introduction to sparse spectral methods using Jacobi polynomials in one and higher dimensions. The second chapter concerns the numerical solution of Volterra integral equations. The introduced method achieves exponential convergence and works for general kernels, a major advantage over comparable methods which are limited to convolution kernels. The third chapter introduces an approximately banded method to solve power law kernel equilibrium measures in arbitrary dimensional balls. This choice of domain is suggested by the radial symmetry of the problem and analytic results on the supports of the resulting measures. For our method, we obtain the crucial property of computational cost independent of the dimension of the domain, a major contrast to particle simulations which are the current standard approach to these problems and scale extremely poorly with both the dimension and the number of particles.Open Acces

Chelyshkov Collocation Method for Solving Three-Dimensional linear Fredholm Integral Equations

The main purpose of this work is to use the Chelyshkov-collocation method for the solution of three- dimensional Fredholm integral equations. The method is based on the approximate solution in terms of Chelyshkov polynomials with unknown coefficients. This method transforms the integral equation to a system of linear algebraic equations by means of collocation points. Finally, numerical results are included to show the validity and applicability of the method and comparisons are made with existing results