A Primal-Dual Active Set Strategy for Optimal Boundary Control of a Nonlinear Reaction-Diffusion System

Abstract

This paper is concerned with optimal boundary control of an instationary reaction-diffusion system in three spatial dimensions. This problem involves a coupled nonlinear system of parabolic differential equations with bilateral as well as integral control constraints. We include the integral constraint in the cost by a penalty term whereas the bilateral control constraints are handled explicitly. First- and second-order conditions for the optimization problem are analyzed. A primal-dual active set strategy is utilized to compute optimal solutions numerically. The algorithm is compared to a semismooth Newton method.