Optimal control of insect populations

Abstract

We consider some optimal control problems for systems governed by linear parabolic PDEs with local controls that can move along the domain region Ω of the plane. We prove the existence of optimal paths and also deduce the first order necessary optimality conditions, using the Dubovitskii–Milyutin’s formalism, which leads to an iterative algorithm of the fixed-point kind. This problem may be considered as a model for the control of a mosquito population existing in a given region by using moving insecticide spreading devices. In this situation, an optimal control is any trajectory or path that must follow such spreading device in order to reduce the population as much as possible with a reasonable not too expensive strategy. We illustrate our results by presenting some numerical experiments.