Controls and Control Theory Commons^™

On The Synthesis Of Optimal Control Laws, Meir Pachter, Isaac E. Weintraub

Faculty Publications

In this paper we advocate for Isaacs' method for the solution of differential games to be applied to the solution of optimal control problems. To make the argument, the vehicle employed is Pontryagin's canonical optimal control example, which entails a double integrator plant. However, rather than controlling the state to the origin, we correctly require the end state to reach a terminal set that contains the origin in its interior. Indeed, in practice, it is required to control to a prescribed tolerance rather than reach a desired end state; achieving tight tolerances is expensive, and from a theoretical point of …