Paper 4, Section II, K
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 . The oil can be sold at price per unit. To extract oil at rate when the remaining quantity of oil in the well is incurs cost at rate . Thus the problem is one of maximizing
subject to . Formulate the Hamiltonian for this problem.
Explain why , the adjoint variable, has a boundary condition .
Use Pontryagin's Maximum Principle to show that under optimal control
and
Find the oil remaining in the well at time , as a function of , and ,