Impulsive control of nonlocal transport equations

The paper extends an impulsive control-theoretical framework towards dynamic systems in the space of measures. We consider a transport equation describing the time-evolution of a conservative "mass" (probability measure), which represents an infinite ensemble of interacting particles. The driving vector field contains nonlocal terms and it is affine in the control variable. The control is assumed to be common for all the agents, i.e., it is a function of time variable only. The main feature of the addressed model is the admittance of "shock" impacts, i.e. controls, whose influence on each agent can be arbitrary close to Dirac-type distributions. We construct an impulsive relaxation of this system and of the corresponding optimal control problem. For the latter we establish a necessary optimality condition in the form of Pontryagin's Maximum Principle. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier Inc.