Optimal control for coupled sweeping processes under minimal assumptions

Abstract: In this paper, the study of nonsmooth optimal control problems (P) involving a controlled sweeping process with three main characteristics is launched. First, the sweeping sets C(t) are nonsmooth, unbounded, time-dependent, uniformly prox-regular, and satisfy minimal assumptions. Second, the sweeping process is coupled with a controlled differential equation. Third, joint-state endpoints constraint set S, including periodic conditions, is present. The existence and uniqueness of a Lipschitz solution for our dynamic is established, the existence of an optimal solution for our general form of optimal control is obtained, and the full form of the nonsmooth Pontryagin maximum principle for strong local minimizers in (P) is derived under minimal hypotheses. One of the novelties of this paper is the idea to work with a well-constructed problem corresponding to truncated sweeping sets and joint endpoint constraints that shares the same strong local minimizer as (P) and for which the exponential-penalty approximation technique can be developed using only the assumptions on (P).