A Space-Time Variational Method for Optimal Control Problems

We consider a space-time variational formulation of a PDE-constrained optimal control problem with box constraints on the control and a parabolic PDE with Robin boundary conditions. In this setting, the optimal control problem reduces to an optimization problem for which we derive necessary and sufficient optimality conditions. Next, we introduce a space-time (tensorproduct) discretization using finite elements in space and piecewise linear functions in time. This setting is known to be equivalent to a Crank-Nicolson time stepping scheme for parabolic problems. The optimization problem is solved by a projected gradient method. We show numerical comparisons for problems in 1d, 2d and 3d in space. It is shown that the classical semi-discrete primal-dual setting is more efficient for small problem sizes and moderate accuracy. However, the space-time discretization shows good stability properties and even outperforms the classical approach as the dimension in space and/or the desired accuracy increases.Comment: 20 page