In this paper, we study numerical methods for an optimal control problem with pointwise state constraints. The traditional approaches often need to deal with the deltasingularity in the dual equation, which causes many difficulties in its theoretical analysis and numerical approximation. In our new approach we reformulate the state-constrained optimal control as a constrained minimization problems only involving the state, whose optimality condition is characterized by a fourth order elliptic variational inequality. Then direct numerical algorithms （nonconforming finite element approximation） are proposed for the inequality, and error estimates of the finite element approximation are derived. Numerical experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the new approach.
This paper is concerned with an ill-posed problem which results from the area of molecular imaging and is known as BLT problem. Using Tikhonov regularization technique, a quadratic optimization problem can be formulated. We provide an improved error estimate for the finite element approximation of the regularized optimization problem. Some numerical examples are presented to demonstrate our theoretical results.
