On the strong local optimality for state-constrained control-affine problems (Q6172789)

The minimum-time and the Mayer problem are addressed for a class of systems that contain both a drift and a control affine part, and are subject to a smooth state constraint. The control belongs to the interval \([-1,1]\). Sufficient strong optimality conditions are provided for trajectory-control pairs that satisfy the classical necessary conditions of Pontryagin's type and have a special structure, i.e. they are a concatenation of a bang arc that belongs to the interior of the constraint, followed by an arc that belongs to the boundary of the constraint with a control that belongs to \((-1,1)\), further followed by finitely many bang arcs of the previous type. The sufficient conditions provided in this paper are based on a classical (Hamiltonian) method, that is adapted for the first time to state constrained problems. The assumptions require the coercivity of a suitable quadratic form, together with some regularity assumptions on the constraint with respect to the dynamics, as well as on some assumptions on the adjoint vector along the bang and the boundary arcs.