Analysis and numerical solution of some minimal time control problems (Q6959643)

The authors consider some minimal time control problems where the state is given by the solution to a differential equation, by starting from simple situations (corresponding to linear and nonlinear ODEs) up to a the classical heat equation. They analyze the existence of solutions, deduce optimality results and present several algorithms for the computation of optimal controls. A new perspective on minimum time control problems is done by establishing a connection between this study and multi-objective control problems, and the study is approached as a minimization problem for a functional involving two opposing controls. The transformed problem is solved with the control parametrization algorithm in which the control is approximated by piecewise constant functions with fixed node points. Another novelty is the choice of a quadratic functional for minimization in both controls (one being the time). By this approach it is possible to deduce certain results that helped in computation for both the control and the minimum time. Moreover, it allowes to employ all the well-established techniques in multi-objective optimization of quadratic functional, creating a suitable framework for control search. Finally, the results are illustrated with several numerical experiments.