The infinite-dimensional Pontryagin maximum principle for optimal control problems of fractional evolution equations with endpoint state constraints

Abstract

In this paper, we study the infinite-dimensional endpoint state-constrained optimal control problem for fractional evolution equations. The state equation is modeled by the X-valued left Caputo fractional evolution equation with the analytic semigroup, where X is a Banach space. The objective functional is formulated by the Bolza form, expressed in terms of the left Riemann-Liouville (RL) fractional integral running and initial/terminal costs. The endpoint state constraint is described by initial and terminal state values within convex subsets of X. Under this setting, we prove the Pontryagin maximum principle. Unlike the existing literature, we do not assume the strict convexity of X*, the dual space of X. This assumption is particularly important, as it guarantees the differentiability of the distance function of the endpoint state constraint. In the proof, we relax this assumption via a separation argument and constructing a family of spike variations for the Ekeland variational principle. Subsequently, we prove the maximum principle, including nontriviality, adjoint equation, transversality, and Hamiltonian maximization conditions, by establishing variational and duality analysis under the finite codimensionality of initial-and end-point variational sets. Our variational and duality analysis requires new representation results on left Caputo and right RL linear fractional evolution equations in terms of (left and right RL) fractional state transition operators. Indeed, due to the inherent complex nature of the problem of this paper, our maximum principle and its proof technique are new in the optimal control context. As an illustrative example, we consider the state-constrained fractional diffusion PDE control problem, for which the optimality condition is derived by the maximum principle of this paper.