Optimal dynamic advertising policies in the presence of continuously distributed time lags

The Nerlove-Arrow model of optimal dynamic advertising policies is generalized by incorporating a continuously distributed lag between advertising expenditures and increases in the stock of goodwill. This leads to a control problem where the equation of motion is given by an integro-differential equation. The transitory and steady-state properties of the optimal policies are examined, both for a general lag function and for a gamma distributed lag. The dependence of the steady-state solution on the parameters of the gamma distribution is also investigated. An example is given using specific demand and cost functions.     

An explicit linear solution for the quadratic dynamic programming problem

For a given vectorx ₀, the sequence {x _t} which optimizes the sum of discounted rewardsr(x _t, x_t+1), wherer is a quadratic function, is shown to be generated by a linear decision rulex _t+1=Sx _t +R. Moreover, the coefficientsR,S are given by explicit formulas in terms of the coefficients of the reward functionr. A unique steady-state is shown to exist (except for a degenerate case), and its stability is discussed.     

Application of average dynamic programming to inventory systems

We show the existence ofaverage cost (AC-) optimal policy for an inventory system withuncountable state space; in fact, the AC-optimal cost and an AC-optimal stationary policy areexplicitly computed. In order to do this, we use a variant of thevanishing discount factor approach, which have been intensively studied in recent years but the available results not cover the inventory problem we are interested in.The work of the first author (OVA) was partially supported by Fondo del Sistema de Investigación del Mar de Cortéz under grant SIMAC/94/CT-005. The work of the second author (RMdO) was partially supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACyT) under grant 0635P-E9506.     

Optimal control of a class of systems with continuous lags: Dynamic programming approach and economic interpretations

This paper derives a maximum principle for dynamic systems with continuous lags, i.e., systems governed by integrodifferential equations, using dynamic programming. As a result, the adjoint variables can be provided with useful economic interpretations.This research was supported by NSERC Grant No. A4619.     

A dual dynamic programming for minimax optimal control problems governed by parabolic equation

In the article, minimax optimal control problems governed by parabolic equations are considered. We apply a new dual dynamic programming approach to derive sufficient optimality conditions for such problems. The idea is to move all the notions from a state space to a dual space and to obtain a new verification theorem providing the conditions, which should be satisfied by a solution of the dual partial differential equation of dynamic programming. We also give sufficient optimality conditions for the existence of an optimal dual feedback control and some approximation of the problem considered, which seems to be very useful from a practical point of view.     

Adaptive event-triggered dynamic distributed control of switched positive systems with switching faults

This paper designs the dynamic output-feedback controller of switched positive systems subject to switching faults using an improved adaptive event-triggering mechanism. An adaptive event-triggering condition is addressed in the form of 1-norm by virtue of the measurable outputs of distributed sensors and the corresponding error. An error-based closed-loop control system whose dynamic variable relies on a state observer is obtained. A multiple copositive Lyapunov function is constructed to deal with the positivity and stability of the systems. The matrix decomposition and linear programming approaches are used to design and compute the controller and observer gains. An improved average dwell time scheme is proposed to handle the switching faults. The contributions of this paper lie in that: (i) An adaptive event-triggering mechanism is established for switched positive systems, (ii) A framework on the fault of switching signal is constructed, and (iii) A dynamic distributed controller is proposed for the considered systems. Finally, two illustrative examples are given to verify the effectiveness of the obtained results.