Necessary optimality condition for the minimal time crisis relaxing transverse condition via regularization

¹ Avignon Université, Laboratoire de Mathématiques d’Avignon (EA 2151), 84018 Avignon, France.
² UMR MISTEA, Univ. Montpellier, INRAE, Institut Agro, 34060 Montpellier, France.

^* Corresponding author: alain.rapaport@inrae.fr

Received: 17 May 2021
Accepted: 23 November 2021

Abstract

We derive necessary optimality conditions for the time of crisis problem under a more general hypothesis than the usual one encountered in the hybrid setting, which requires that any optimal solution should cross the boundary of the constraint set transversely. Doing so, we apply the Pontryagin Maximum Principle to a sequence of regular optimal control problems whose integral cost approximates the time of crisis. Optimality conditions are derived by passing to the limit in the Hamiltonian system (without the use of the hybrid maximum principle). This convergence result essentially relies on the boundedness of the sequence of adjoint vectors in L^∞. Our main contribution is to relate this property to the boundedness in L¹ of a suitable sequence which allows to avoid the use of the transverse hypothesis on optimal paths. An example with non-transverse trajectories for which necessary conditions are derived highlights the use of this new condition.