Decomposable jump decision processes

A large class of continuous parameter jump decision processes is considered. Pontryagin's Maximum Principle is used to derive a necessary condition for optimality. An optimal strategy may frequently be obtained explicitly.     

Geometric Approach to Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle

Since the second half of the 20th century, Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle has been widely discussed and used as a method to solve optimal control problems in medicine, robotics, finance, engineering, astronomy. Here, we focus on the proof and on the understanding of this Principle, using as much geometric ideas and geometric tools as possible. This approach provides a better and clearer understanding of the Principle and, in particular, of the role of the abnormal extremals. These extremals are interesting because they do not depend on the cost function, but only on the control system. Moreover, they were discarded as solutions until the nineties, when examples of strict abnormal optimal curves were found. In order to give a detailed exposition of the proof, the paper is mostly self-contained, which forces us to consider different areas in mathematics such as algebra, analysis, geometry.     

Influence of forecasting electricity prices in the optimization of complex hydrothermal systems

This paper proposes a new method for addressing the short-term optimal operation of a generation company, fully adapted to represent the characteristics of the new competitive markets. We propose an efficient and highly accurate novel method for next-day price forecasting. We model the functional time series with a linear autoregressive functional model which formulates the relationships between each daily function of prices and the functions of previous days. For the optimization problem (formulated within the framework of nonsmooth analysis using Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle), we propose a new method that uses diverse mathematical techniques (the Shooting Method, Euler’s Method, the Cyclic Coordinate Descent Method). These techniques are well known for the case of functions, but are adapted here to the case of functionals and are efficiently combined to provide a novel contribution. Finally, the paper presents the results of applying our method to a price-taker company in the Spanish electricity market.     

Optimal purchase and advertising for a product with immediate sale start

Summary We consider the problem of maximizing the discounted net profit of a firm which purchases a quantity of some product at a given time and afterwards advertises and sells the product progressively. We distinguish among the three possibilities of assuming the final time to be either fixed, or bounded, or free. In all cases, after stating the problem in the optimal control theory framework, we prove the existence of an optimal solution and characterize it using the Maximum Principle necessary conditions. Furthermore, we prove that the convexity of the purchase cost function is a sufficient condition for the uniqueness of the optimal solution. Partially supported by MURST.     

An EOQ model for salesmen’s initiatives, stock and price sensitive demand of similar products - A dynamical system

The paper deals with an inventory model to determine the retailer’s optimal order quantity for similar products. It is assumed that the amount of display space is limited and the demand of the products depends on the display stock level where more stock of one product makes a negative impression of the another product. Besides it, the demand rate is also dependent on selling price and salesmen’s initiatives. Also, the replenishment rate depends on the level of stock of the items. The objective of the model is to maximize the profit function, including the effect of inflation and time value of money by Pontryagin’s Maximal Principles. The stability analysis of the concerned dynamical system has been done analytically.     

Advertising and production of a seasonal good for a heterogeneous market

We bring some concepts from market segmentation, which is a fundamental topic of marketing theory and practice, into the statement of an advertising and production problem for a seasonal product with Nerlove–Arrow’s linear goodwill dynamics. We consider two kinds of situations. In the first one, the advertising process can reach selectively each segment. In the second one, one advertising medium is available which has a known effectiveness spectrum for a non-trivial set of segments. In both cases we solve, using the Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle conditions, the optimal control problems in which goodwill productivity of advertising is concave and good production cost is convex. Two special cases are discussed in detail.     

Joint project of fishery and poultry - A bioeconomic model

This paper considers the optimal joint harvest of prawns and poultry in a linked bioeconomic system. Through the cultivation process, poultry and prawns are reciprocal predators of one another. Prawns of non-marketable quality are fed to the birds, and birds which perish (in greater numbers in the face of increased density) are fed to prawns, along with a lot of other things that one does not usually consider prawns to eat (hogs, broken rice, etc.). The paper derives optimality conditions for the joint “effort” imposed in each of these industries, where effort is somehow analogous to the control variable in classical Gordon-Schaefer fishery problems. Growth of both species is governed by parameters as well as externally applied nutrients and the biomass of the other species available as supplemental nutrition. Analysis of the boundedness of this dynamical system is discussed. The conditions for local and global stability are derived. Finally, an optimal harvesting policy is discussed by applying Pontryagin’s Maximal Principle. Due to linearity of the objective function with respect to the control variable, the solution is bang-bang in this control and the best policy is to reach the singular equilibrium as quickly as possible by switching to the singular control.     

Optimization of Measure-Driven Hybrid Systems

We study an optimal control problem for a state-dependent impulse system described by a measure differential equation. A specific time reparameterization technique is developed to reduce the impulsive control problem to the one with bounded controls. Necessary conditions of optimality are obtained by interpreting the Maximum Principle in the reduced problem. An impulsive control improvement scheme is outlined. The results of numeric simulation are presented.     

Optimal harvesting in a predator-prey model with Allee effect and sigmoid functional response

This work deals with the determination of the optimal harvest policy in an open access fishery in which both prey and predator species are subjected to non-selective harvesting.The model is described by autonomous ordinary differential equation systems, the functional response of the predators is Holling type III and the prey growth is affected by the Allee effect. The catch-rate functions are based on the catch per unit effort (CPUE) or Schaefer’s hypothesis.The problem of determining the optimal harvest policy is solved by using Pontryagin’s maximal principle. The problem here studied is to maximize a cost function representing the present value of a continuous time-stream of revenue of the fishery.     

Mathematical model of optimal chemotherapy strategy with allowance for cell population dynamics in a heterogeneous tumor

A mathematical model of tumor cell population dynamics is considered. The tumor is assumed to consist of cells of two types: amenable and resistant to chemotherapeutic treatment. It is assumed that the growth of the cell populations of both types is governed by logistic equations. The effect of a chemotherapeutic drug on the tumor is specified by a therapy function. Two types of therapy functions are considered: a monotonically increasing function and a nonmonotone one with a threshold. In the former case, the effect of a drug on the tumor is stronger at a higher drug concentration. In the latter case, a threshold drug concentration exists above which the effect of the therapy reduces. The case when the total drug amount is subject to an integral constraint is also studied. A similar problem was previously studied in the case of a linear therapy function with no constraint imposed on the drug amount. By applying the Pontryagin maximum principle, necessary optimality conditions are found, which are used to draw important conclusions about the character of the optimal therapy strategy. The optimal control problem of minimizing the total number of tumor cells is solved numerically in the case of a monotone or threshold therapy function with allowance for the integral constraint on the drug amount.     

Optimization in microbial pest control: An integrated approach

The paper deals with optimal management of agricultural pest population under integrated control arising out of viral infection and spraying of pesticide. The costs of the control measures and the profits or projected profits of the biomass of species give rise to a control theoretic optimization problem. We take a four dimensional mathematical model of pest control under viral infection and pesticide, and apply Pontryagin’s maximum principle (PMP) to find out the necessary conditions on economic as well as on ecological parameters to make the control process maximum profitable.     

On homotopy analysis method applied to linear optimal control problems

In this paper, the homotopy analysis method (HAM) is employed to solve the linear optimal control problems (OCPs), which have a quadratic performance index. The study examines the application of the homotopy analysis method in obtaining the solution of equations that have previously been obtained using the Pontryagin’s maximum principle (PMP). The HAM approach is also applied in obtaining the solution of the matrix Riccati equation. Numerical results are presented for several test examples involving scalar and 2nd-order systems to demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the method.     

Optimal control of the primitive equations of the ocean with state constraints

We investigate in this article Pontryagin’s maximum principle for a class of control problems associated with the primitive equations (PEs) of the ocean. These optimal problems involve a state constraint similar to that considered in Wang (2002) [7] for the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes (NS) equations. The main difference between this work and Wang (2002) [7] is that the nonlinearity in the PEs is stronger than in the three-dimensional NS systems.     

Possibility and necessity constraints and their defuzzification—A multi-item production-inventory scenario via optimal control theory

In this paper, analogous to chance constraints, real-life necessity and possibility constraints in the context of a multi-item dynamic production-inventory control system are defined and defuzzified following fuzzy relations. Hence, a realistic multi-item production-inventory model with shortages and fuzzy constraints has been formulated and solved for optimal production with the objective of having minimum cost. Here, the rate of production is assumed to be a function of time and considered as a control variable. Also the present system produces some defective units along with the perfect ones and the rate of produced defective units is constant. Here demand of the good units is time dependent and known and the defective units are of no use. The space required per unit item, available storage space and investment capital are assumed to be imprecise. The space and budget constraints are of necessity and/or possibility types. The model is formulated as an optimal control problem and solved for optimum production function using Pontryagin’s optimal control policy, the Kuhn–Tucker conditions and generalized reduced gradient (GRG) technique. The model is illustrated numerically and values of demand, optimal production function and stock level are presented in both tabular and graphical forms. The sensitivity of the cost functional due to the changes in confidence level of imprecise constraints is also presented.     

Non-degenerate necessary optimality conditions for the optimal control problem with equality-type state constraints

In this work, an optimal control problem with state constraints of equality type is considered. Novelty of the problem formulation is justified. Under various regularity assumptions imposed on the optimal trajectory, a non-degenerate Pontryagin Maximum Principle is proven. As a consequence of the maximum principle, the Euler–Lagrange and Legendre conditions for a variational problem with equality and inequality state constraints are obtained. As an application, the equation of the geodesic curve for a complex domain is derived. In control theory, the Maximum Principle suggests the global maximum condition, also known as the Weierstrass–Pontryagin maximum condition, due to which the optimal control function, at each instant of time, turns out to be a solution to a global finite-dimensional optimization problem.     

Weak maximum principle for optimal control problems of nonsmooth systems

In this paper, by considering vector-valued maximum type functions satisfying Lipschitz condition, and optimal control systems with continuous-time which is governed by systems of ordinary differential equation, we derive results similar to Pontryagin’s maximum principle and properties concerning the generalized Jacobian set for optimal control problems of these systems.     

The optimal pricing and ordering policy for an integrated inventory model when trade credit linked to order quantity

In traditional inventory models, it is implicitly assumed that the buyer must pay for the purchased items as soon as they have been received. However, in many practical situations, the vendor is willing to provide the buyer with a permissible delay period when the buyer’s order quantity exceeds a given threshold. Therefore, to incorporate the concept of vendor–buyer integration and order-size-dependent trade credit, we present a stylized model to determine the optimal strategy for an integrated vendor–buyer inventory system under the condition of trade credit linked to the order quantity, where the demand rate is considered to be a decreasing function of the retail price. By analyzing the total channel profit function, we developed some useful results to characterize the optimal solution and provide an iterative algorithm to find the retail price, buyer’s order quantity, and the numbers of shipment per production run from the vendor to the buyer. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are given to illustrate the theoretical results, and some managerial insights are also obtained.     

Pontryagin’s maximum principle for constrained impulsive control problems

Necessary conditions in the form of Pontryagin’s maximum principle are derived for impulsive control problems with mixed constraints. A new mathematical concept of impulsive control is introduced as a requirement for the consistency of the impulsive framework. Additionally, this control concept enables the incorporation of the engineering needs to consider conventional control action while the impulse develops. The regularity assumptions under which the maximum principle is proved are weaker than those in the known literature. Ekeland’s variational principle and Lebesgue’s discontinuous time variable change are used in the proof. The article also contains an example showing how such impulsive controls could be relevant in actual applications.     

Optimal control of harvest and bifurcation of a prey-predator model with stage structure

This paper describes a prey-predator model with stage structure for prey. The adult prey and predator populations are harvested in the proposed system. The dynamic behavior of the model system is discussed. It is observed that singularity induced bifurcation phenomenon is appeared when variation of the economic interest of harvesting is taken into account. State feedback controller is incorporated to stabilize the model system in case of positive economic interest. Harvesting of prey and predator population are used as controls to develop a dynamic framework to investigate the optimal utilization of the resource, sustainability properties of the stock and the resource rent earned from the resource. The Pontryagin’s maximum principle is used to characterize the optimal controls. The optimality system is derived and then solved numerically using an iterative method with Runge-Kutta fourth order scheme. Simulation results show that the optimal control scheme can achieve sustainable ecosystem.     

Retailer’s optimal replenishment and payment policies in the EPQ model under cash discount and two-level trade credit policy

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the retailer’s optimal cycle time and optimal payment time under the supplier’s cash discount and trade credit policy within the economic production quantity (EPQ) framework. In this paper, we assume that the retailer will provide a full trade credit to his/her good credit customers and request his/her bad credit customers pay for the items as soon as receiving them. Under this assumption, we model the retailer’s inventory system as a cost minimization problem to determine the retailer’s optimal inventory cycle time and optimal payment time under the replenishment rate is finite. Then, an algorithm is established to obtain the optimal strategy. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the theoretical results and obtain some managerial phenomena.