4.II.29I

Optimization and Control
Part II, 2005

A continuous-time control problem is defined in terms of state variable x(t)Rnx(t) \in \mathbb{R}^{n} and control u(t)Rm,0tTu(t) \in \mathbb{R}^{m}, 0 \leqslant t \leqslant T. We desire to minimize 0Tc(x,t)dt+K(x(T))\int_{0}^{T} c(x, t) d t+K(x(T)), where TT is fixed and x(T)x(T) is unconstrained. Given x(0)x(0) and x˙=a(x,u)\dot{x}=a(x, u), describe further boundary conditions that can be used in conjunction with Pontryagin's maximum principle to find x,ux, u and the adjoint variables λ1,,λn\lambda_{1}, \ldots, \lambda_{n}.

Company 1 wishes to steal customers from Company 2 and maximize the profit it obtains over an interval [0,T][0, T]. Denoting by xi(t)x_{i}(t) the number of customers of Company ii, and by u(t)u(t) the advertising effort of Company 1 , this leads to a problem

minimize0T[x2(t)+3u(t)]dt\operatorname{minimize} \int_{0}^{T}\left[x_{2}(t)+3 u(t)\right] d t

where x˙1=ux2,x˙2=ux2\dot{x}_{1}=u x_{2}, \dot{x}_{2}=-u x_{2}, and u(t)u(t) is constrained to the interval [0,1][0,1]. Assuming x2(0)>3/Tx_{2}(0)>3 / T, use Pontryagin's maximum principle to show that the optimal advertising policy is bang-bang, and that there is just one change in advertising effort, at a time tt^{*}, where

3et=x2(0)(Tt).3 e^{t^{*}}=x_{2}(0)\left(T-t^{*}\right) .