Method of straight lines in boundary control and observation problems for the equation of a string oscillation (Q1898598)

The object of this paper is the classical equation of a vibrating string \[ y_{tt} - y_{xx} = 0,\;x \in [0,L],\;t \geq 0, \] under the action of a Dirichlet boundary control \[ y(0,t) = u(t),\quad y(L,t) = 0. \] Typical problems for this equation are exact controllability, which consists of finding a control \(u\) steering the system to rest \(y = y_t = 0\) in finite time, and observability, which is in some sense dual to controllability. Theoretically, these problems have been completely solved not only for the equation under consideration, but for more general hyperbolic equations in any space dimension. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a finite-dimensional approximation scheme for the above exact controllability and observability problems. This research direction is not new at least for two of the authors, who have, already studied this problem by Fourier expansion methods [the authors, ibid. No. 2, 1-5 (1993; Zbl 0854.93070)]. In the present paper they apply, again successfully, the well known method of lines and show its convergence, although they give no error estimation whatsoever.