Title: The turnpike property: a classical feature of optimal control problems revisited

Speaker: Lars Grüne (University of Bayreuth)

Date and Time: Wed May 04 2022, 17:00 AEST (Register here for remote connection via Zoom)

Abstract:

The turnpike property describes a particular behavior of optimal control problems that was first observed by Ramsey in the 1920s and by von Neumann in the 1930s. Since then it has found widespread attention in mathematical economics and control theory alike. In recent years it received renewed interest, on the one hand in optimization with partial differential equations and on the other hand in model predictive control (MPC), one of the most popular optimization based control schemes in practice. In this talk we will first give a general introduction to and a brief history of the turnpike property, before we look at it from a systems and control theoretic point of view. Particularly, we will clarify its relation to dissipativity, detectability, and sensitivity properties of optimal control problems in both finite and infinite dimensions. In the final part of the talk we will explain why the turnpike property is important for analyzing the performance of MPC.