A Posteriori Second-Order Guarantees for Bolza Problems via Collocation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Zheng, Dongzhe, Mei, Wenjie
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Zheng, Dongzhe
Mei, Wenjie
author_facet Zheng, Dongzhe
Mei, Wenjie
contents Direct collocation for Bolza optimal control yields discrete Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) points, while practical solvers expose only discrete quantities such as primal-dual iterates, reduced Hessians, and Jacobians. This creates a gap between continuous second-order optimality theory and what can be certified from solver output. We develop an a posteriori certification framework that bridges this gap. Starting from a discrete KKT solution, we reconstruct piecewise polynomial state, control, and costate trajectories, evaluate residuals of the dynamics, boundary, and stationarity conditions, and derive a computable lower bound for the continuous second variation. The bound is expressed as the discrete reduced curvature minus explicit residual-dependent correction terms. A positive bound yields a sufficient certificate for continuous second-order sufficiency and provides quantitative information relevant to local growth and trust-region sizing. The constants entering the certification inequality are conservatively estimable from reconstructed discrete data. The resulting test is operationally verifiable from collocation outputs and naturally supports adaptive mesh refinement through residual decomposition. We also outline an extension to path inequalities with isolated transversal switches.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_05811
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Posteriori Second-Order Guarantees for Bolza Problems via Collocation
Zheng, Dongzhe
Mei, Wenjie
Optimization and Control
Systems and Control
Direct collocation for Bolza optimal control yields discrete Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) points, while practical solvers expose only discrete quantities such as primal-dual iterates, reduced Hessians, and Jacobians. This creates a gap between continuous second-order optimality theory and what can be certified from solver output. We develop an a posteriori certification framework that bridges this gap. Starting from a discrete KKT solution, we reconstruct piecewise polynomial state, control, and costate trajectories, evaluate residuals of the dynamics, boundary, and stationarity conditions, and derive a computable lower bound for the continuous second variation. The bound is expressed as the discrete reduced curvature minus explicit residual-dependent correction terms. A positive bound yields a sufficient certificate for continuous second-order sufficiency and provides quantitative information relevant to local growth and trust-region sizing. The constants entering the certification inequality are conservatively estimable from reconstructed discrete data. The resulting test is operationally verifiable from collocation outputs and naturally supports adaptive mesh refinement through residual decomposition. We also outline an extension to path inequalities with isolated transversal switches.
title A Posteriori Second-Order Guarantees for Bolza Problems via Collocation
topic Optimization and Control
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.05811