Paper 4, Section II, K

Optimization and Control
Part II, 2011

Describe the type of optimal control problem that is amenable to analysis using Pontryagin's Maximum Principle.

A firm has the right to extract oil from a well over the interval [0,T][0, T]. The oil can be sold at price £p£ p per unit. To extract oil at rate uu when the remaining quantity of oil in the well is xx incurs cost at rate £u2/x£ u^{2} / x. Thus the problem is one of maximizing

0T[pu(t)u(t)2x(t)]dt\int_{0}^{T}\left[p u(t)-\frac{u(t)^{2}}{x(t)}\right] d t

subject to dx(t)/dt=u(t),u(t)0,x(t)0d x(t) / d t=-u(t), u(t) \geqslant 0, x(t) \geqslant 0. Formulate the Hamiltonian for this problem.

Explain why λ(t)\lambda(t), the adjoint variable, has a boundary condition λ(T)=0\lambda(T)=0.

Use Pontryagin's Maximum Principle to show that under optimal control

λ(t)=p11/p+(Tt)/4\lambda(t)=p-\frac{1}{1 / p+(T-t) / 4}

and

dx(t)dt=2px(t)4+p(Tt)\frac{d x(t)}{d t}=-\frac{2 p x(t)}{4+p(T-t)}

Find the oil remaining in the well at time TT, as a function of x(0),px(0), p, and TT,