Paper detail

Optimal control of two coupled spinning particles in the Euler-Lagrange picture

A family of optimal control problems for a single and two coupled spinning particles in the Euler-Lagrange formalism is discussed. A characteristic of such problems is that the equations controlling the system are implicit and a reduction procedure to deal with them must be carried on. The reduction of the implicit control equations arising in these problems will be discussed in the slightly more general setting of implicit equations defined by invariant one-forms on Lie groups. As an instance, the first order differential equations describing the extremal solutions of an optimal control problem for a single spinning particle, obtained by using Pontryagin's Maximum Principle (PMP), will be found and shown to be completely integrable. Then, using again PMP, solutions for the problem of two coupled spinning particles will be characterised as solutions of a system of coupled non-linear matrix differential equations. The reduction of the implicit system will show that the reduced space for them is the product of the space of states for the independent systems, implying the absence of `entanglement' in this instance. Finally it will be shown that, in the case of identical systems, the degree three matrix polynomial differential equations determined by the optimal feedback law, constitute a completely integrable Hamiltonian system and some of its solutions are described explicitly.