The optimal control of gas transport networks was and still is a very important topic for modern economies and societies. Accordingly, a lot of research has been carried out on this topic during the last years and decades. Besides mixed-integer aspects in gas transport network optimization, one of the main challenges is that a physically … Read more
Mixed-integer optimal control problems arise in many practical applications combining nonlinear, dynamic, and combinatorial features. To cope with the resulting complexity, several approaches have been suggested in the past. Some of them rely on solving a reformulated and relaxed control problem, referred to as partial outer convexification. Inspired by an efficient algorithm for switching time … Read more
The aim of this paper is to formulate several questions related to distributionally robust Stochastic Optimal Control modeling. As an example, the distributionally robust counterpart of the classical inventory model is discussed in details. Finite and infinite horizon stationary settings are considered. Article Download View Distributionally Robust Modeling of Optimal Control
In this article, we continue our work (Krug et al., 2021) on time-domain decomposition of optimal control problems for systems of semilinear hyperbolic equations in that we now consider mixed two-point boundary value problems and provide an in-depth well-posedness analysis. The more general boundary conditions significantly enlarge the scope of applications, e.g., to hyperbolic problems … Read more
There are first-optimize-then-discretize (indirect) and first-discretize-then-optimize (direct) methods to deal with infinite dimensional optimal problems numerically by use of finite element methods. Generally, both discretization techniques lead to different structures. Regarding the indirect method, one derives optimality conditions of the considered infinite dimensional problems in appropriate function spaces firstly and then discretizes them into suitable … Read more
In this paper we discuss sample complexity of solving stationary stochastic programs by the Sample Average Approximation (SAA) method. We investigate this in the framework of Optimal Control (in discrete time) setting. In particular we derive a Central Limit Theorem type asymptotics for the optimal values of the SAA problems. The main conclusion is that … Read more
In this paper, we discuss Optimal Control and Markov Decision Process (MDP) formulations of multistage optimization problems when the involved probability distributions are not known exactly, but rather are assumed to belong to specified ambiguity families. The aim of this paper is to clarify a connection between such distributionally robust approaches to multistage stochastic optimization. … Read more
In this paper we study numerically solving optimal control problems with bang-bang control functions. We present a formal Lagrangian approach for solving the optimal control problem, and address difficulties encountered when numerically solving the state and adjoint equations by using the immersed interface method. We note that our numerical approach does not approximate the discontinuous … Read more
We develop Monte-Carlo based heuristic approaches to approximate the objective function in long horizon optimal control problems. In these approaches, to approximate the expectation operator in the objective function, we evolve the system state over multiple trajectories into the future while sampling the noise disturbances at each time-step, and find the average (or weighted average) … Read more
In this article, we extend the time-domain decomposition method described by Lagnese and Leugering (2003) to semilinear optimal control problems for hyperbolic balance laws with spatio-temporal varying coefficients. We provide the design of the iterative method applied to the global first-order optimality system, prove its convergence, and derive an a posteriori error estimate. The analysis … Read more