Asymptotic controllability and optimal control

We consider a control problem where the state must reach asymptotically a target while paying an integral payoff with a non-negative Lagrangian. The dynamics is just continuous, and no assumptions are made on the zero level set of the Lagrangian. Through an inequality involving a positive number $\bar p_0$ and a Minimum Restraint Function $U=U(x)$ --a special type of Control Lyapunov Function-- we provide a condition implying that (i) the control system is asymptotically controllable, and (ii) the value function is bounded above by $U/\bar p_0$

A Higher-order Maximum Principle for Impulsive Optimal Control Problems

We consider a nonlinear system, affine with respect to an unbounded control $u$ which is allowed to range in a closed cone. To this system we associate a Bolza type minimum problem, with a Lagrangian having sublinear growth with respect to $u$. This lack of coercivity gives the problem an {\it impulsive} character, meaning that minimizing sequences of trajectories happen to converge towards discontinuous paths. As is known, a distributional approach does not make sense in such a nonlinear setting, where, instead, a suitable embedding in the graph-space is needed. We provide higher order necessary optimality conditions for properly defined impulsive minima, in the form of equalities and inequalities involving iterated Lie brackets of the dynamical vector fields. These conditions are derived under very weak regularity assumptions and without any constant rank conditions

Necessary conditions involving Lie brackets for impulsive optimal control problems

We obtain higher order necessary conditions for a minimum of a Mayer optimal control problem connected with a nonlinear, control-affine system, where the controls range on an m-dimensional Euclidean space. Since the allowed velocities are unbounded and the absence of coercivity assumptions makes big speeds quite likely, minimizing sequences happen to converge toward "impulsive", namely discontinuous, trajectories. As is known, a distributional approach does not make sense in such a nonlinear setting, where instead a suitable embedding in the graph space is needed. We will illustrate how the chance of using impulse perturbations makes it possible to derive a Higher Order Maximum Principle which includes both the usual needle variations (in space-time) and conditions involving iterated Lie brackets. An example, where a third order necessary condition rules out the optimality of a given extremal, concludes the paper.Comment: Conference pape

Minimum time problem with impulsive and ordinary controls

Given a nonlinear control system depending on two controls u and v, with dynamics affine in the (unbounded) derivative of u and a closed target set depending both on the state and on the control u, we study the minimum time problem with a bound on the total variation of u and u constrained in a closed, convex set U, possibly with empty interior. We revisit several concepts of generalized control and solution considered in the literature and show that they all lead to the same minimum time function T. Then we obtain sufficient conditions for the existence of an optimal generalized trajectory-control pair and study the possibility of Lavrentiev-type gap between the minimum time in the spaces of regular (that is, absolutely continuous) and generalized controls. Finally, under a convexity assumption on the dynamics, we characterize T as the unique lower semicontinuous solution of a regular HJ equation with degenerate state constraints

On L^1 limit solutions in impulsive control

We consider a nonlinear control system depending on two controls u and v, with dynamics affine in the (unbounded) derivative of u, and v appearing initially only in the drift term. Recently, motivated by applications to optimization problems lacking coercivity, Aronna and Rampazzo proposed a notion of generalized solution x for this system, called limit solution, associated to measurable u and v, and with u of possibly unbounded variation in [0, T ]. As shown by Aronna and Rampazzo, when u and x have bounded variation, such a solution (called in this case BV simple limit solution) coincides with the most used graph completion solution (see e.g. Rishel, Warga and Bressan and Rampazzo). In a previous paper we extended this correspondence to BVloc inputs u and trajectories (with bounded variation just on any [0,t] with t < T). Here, starting with an example of optimal control where the minimum does not exist in the class of limit solutions, we propose a notion of extended limit solution x, for which such a minimum exists. As a first result, we prove that extended BV (respectively, BVloc) simple limit solutions and BV (respectively, BVloc) simple limit solutions coincide. Then we consider dynamics where the ordinary control v also appears in the non-drift terms. For the associated system we prove that, in the BV case, extended limit solutions coincide with graph completion solution

Nondegenerate abnormality, controllability, and gap phenomena in optimal control with state constraints

In optimal control theory, infimum gap means that there is a gap between the infimum values of a given minimum problem and an extended problem, obtained by enlarging the set of original solutions and controls. The gap phenomenon is somewhat "dual" to the problem of the controllability of the original control system to an extended solution. In this paper we present sufficient conditions for the absence of an infimum gap and for controllability for a wide class of optimal control problems subject to endpoint and state constraints. These conditions are based on a nondegenerate version of the nonsmooth constrained maximum principle, expressed in terms of subdifferentials. In particular, under some new constraint qualification conditions, we prove that: (i) if an extended minimizer is a nondegenerate normal extremal, then no gap shows up; (ii) given an extended solution verifying the constraints, either it is a nondegenerate abnormal extremal, or the original system is controllable to it. An application to the impulsive extension of a free end-time, non-convex optimization problem with control-polynomial dynamics illustrates the results

Impulsive optimal control problems with time delays in the drift term

We introduce a notion of bounded variation solution for a new class of nonlinear control systems with ordinary and impulsive controls, in which the drift function depends not only on the state, but also on its past history, through a finite number of time delays. After proving the well posedness of such solutions and the continuity of the corresponding input output map with respect to suitable topologies, we establish necessary optimality conditions for an associated optimal control problem. The approach, which involves approximating the problem by a non impulsive optimal control problem with time delays and using Ekeland principle combined with a recent, nonsmooth version of the Maximum Principle for conventional delayed systems, allows us to deal with mild regularity assumptions and a general endpoint constraint