NUMERICAL COMPUTATION OF OPTIMAL CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED PARAMETER SYSTEM

Abstract

This thesis deals with the numerical computation of optimal control of distributed parameter systems. Although much work has been done in the field of lumped parameter system using the well known techniques of dynamic prograimning and Pontryergin's maximum principle, the importance of distributed parameter optimal control system was realized. The author has discussed diecretization techniques for solving optimal control problem of distributed parameter system. The spatial die cretization for one dimensional system has been developed which is further extended to two dimensional system and may be extended to higher order system. lee and Shen (9) has solved one dimensional heat conduction equation without a direct constraint on control function. The author has introduced a direct constraint on control function and optimal control has been computed by both the methods on a high speed computer (I,B.M. 360/44). The results and computa-tional efforts (time) are compared. The method of discretization may be applied to similar type of problems. With the advent of high speed and large memory computers optimal control of distributed parameter system of second degree or hila, degrees may be computed numerically.