Minimal time functions and the smallest intersecting ball problem with unbounded dynamics (Q1937003)

The paper studies some generalizations of the smallest intersecting ball problem, which is an extension of the smallest enclosing circle problem introduced by Sylvester in 1857. Given a normed space \(X\) and a nonempty, closed, convex subset \(F\) of \(X,\) the minimal time function associated to a nonempty subset \(Q\) of \(X\) is defined as \[ {\mathcal T}_Q^F(x):=\inf\{t\geq 0:\,(x+tF)\cap Q\neq \emptyset\}. \] For target sets \(\Omega_i\) (\(i=1,2,\dots, m\)) and a constraint set \(\Omega,\) it turns out that the smallest intersecting ball problem generated by the dynamic \(F\) can be modeled as follows: \[ {\text{minimize } } {\mathcal T}(x)\quad {\text{subject to}}\quad x\in \Omega, \] where \({\mathcal T}(x):=\max\{{\mathcal T}^F_{\Omega_i}(x):\,i=1,\dots,m\}.\) The authors focus on the study of the minimal time function \({\mathcal T}_Q^F\) with \(F\) unbounded; the case where \(F\) is bounded has already been investigated. Sections 3--5 present preliminary and of independ interest results; in particular, Section 4 is devoted to the investigation of some properties of \({\mathcal T}_Q^F\). In Section 6, mathematical modeling and numerical algorithms for solving the smallest intersecting ball problem and its further generalizations are studied.