English

Bounded-From-Below Solutions of the Hamilton-Jacobi Equation for Optimal Control Problems with Exit Times: Vanishing Lagrangians, Eikonal Equations, and Shape-From-Shading

Optimization and Control 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We study the Hamilton-Jacobi equation for undiscounted exit time control problems with general nonnegative Lagrangians using the dynamic programming approach. We prove theorems characterizing the value function as the unique bounded-from-below viscosity solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation which is null on the target. The result applies to problems with the property that all trajectories satisfying a certain integral condition must stay in a bounded set. We allow problems for which the Lagrangian is not uniformly bounded below by positive constants, in which the hypotheses of the known uniqueness results for Hamilton-Jacobi equations are not satisfied. We apply our theorems to eikonal equations from geometric optics, shape-from-shading equations from image processing, and variants of the Fuller Problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0311269,
  title  = {Bounded-From-Below Solutions of the Hamilton-Jacobi Equation for Optimal Control Problems with Exit Times: Vanishing Lagrangians, Eikonal Equations, and Shape-From-Shading},
  author = {Michael Malisoff},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0311269},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

29 pages, 0 figures, accepted for publication in NoDEA Nonlinear Differential Equations and Applications on July 29, 2002