171 research outputs found
Generalized splines in ℝn and optimal control
We give a new time-dependent definition of spline curves in ℝn, which extends a recent definition of vector-valued splines introduced by Rodrigues and Silva Leite for the time-independent case. Previous results are based on a variational approach, with lengthy arguments, which do not cover the non-autonomous situation. We show that the previous results are a consequence of the Pontryagin maximum principle, and are easily generalized using the methods of optimal control. Main result asserts that vector-valued splines are related to the Pontryagin extremals of a non-autonomous linear-quadratic optimal control problem
Lipschitzian Regularity of the Minimizing Trajectories for Nonlinear Optimal Control Problems
We consider the Lagrange problem of optimal control with unrestricted
controls and address the question: under what conditions we can assure optimal
controls are bounded? This question is related to the one of Lipschitzian
regularity of optimal trajectories, and the answer to it is crucial for closing
the gap between the conditions arising in the existence theory and necessary
optimality conditions. Rewriting the Lagrange problem in a parametric form, we
obtain a relation between the applicability conditions of the Pontryagin
maximum principle to the later problem and the Lipschitzian regularity
conditions for the original problem. Under the standard hypotheses of
coercivity of the existence theory, the conditions imply that the optimal
controls are essentially bounded, assuring the applicability of the classical
necessary optimality conditions like the Pontryagin maximum principle. The
result extends previous Lipschitzian regularity results to cover optimal
control problems with general nonlinear dynamics.Comment: This research was partially presented, as an oral communication, at
the international conference EQUADIFF 10, Prague, August 27-31, 2001.
Accepted for publication in the journal Mathematics of Control, Signals, and
Systems (MCSS). See http://www.mat.ua.pt/delfim for other work
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