Partially observed controlled Markov chains and optimal control of the Wonham filter

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Confortola, Fulvia, Fuhrman, Marco
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866908839602814976
author Confortola, Fulvia
Fuhrman, Marco
author_facet Confortola, Fulvia
Fuhrman, Marco
contents We consider a class of optimal control problems, with finite or infinite horizon, for a continuous-time Markov chain with finite state space. In this case, the control process affects the transition rates. We suppose that the controlled process can not be observed, and at any time the control actions are chosen based on the observation of a related stochastic process perturbed by an exogenous Brownian motion. We describe a construction of the controlled Markov chain, having stochastic transition rates adapted to the observation filtration. By a change of probability measure of Girsanov type, we introduce the so-called separated optimal control problem, where the state is the conditional (unnormalized) distribution of the controlled Markov chain and the observation process becomes a driving Brownian motion, and we prove the equivalence with the original control problem. The controlled equations for the separated problem are an instance of the Wonham filtering equations. Next we present an analysis of the separated problem: we characterize the value function as the unique viscosity solution to the dynamic programming equations (both in the parabolic and the elliptic case) we prove verifications theorems and a version of the stochastic maximum principle in the form of a necessary conditions for optimality.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_16392
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Partially observed controlled Markov chains and optimal control of the Wonham filter
Confortola, Fulvia
Fuhrman, Marco
Optimization and Control
Probability
60H30 60J27 93E11 93E20 49L25
We consider a class of optimal control problems, with finite or infinite horizon, for a continuous-time Markov chain with finite state space. In this case, the control process affects the transition rates. We suppose that the controlled process can not be observed, and at any time the control actions are chosen based on the observation of a related stochastic process perturbed by an exogenous Brownian motion. We describe a construction of the controlled Markov chain, having stochastic transition rates adapted to the observation filtration. By a change of probability measure of Girsanov type, we introduce the so-called separated optimal control problem, where the state is the conditional (unnormalized) distribution of the controlled Markov chain and the observation process becomes a driving Brownian motion, and we prove the equivalence with the original control problem. The controlled equations for the separated problem are an instance of the Wonham filtering equations. Next we present an analysis of the separated problem: we characterize the value function as the unique viscosity solution to the dynamic programming equations (both in the parabolic and the elliptic case) we prove verifications theorems and a version of the stochastic maximum principle in the form of a necessary conditions for optimality.
title Partially observed controlled Markov chains and optimal control of the Wonham filter
topic Optimization and Control
Probability
60H30 60J27 93E11 93E20 49L25
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16392