Stochastic optimal control and piecewise parameterization and optimization method for inventory control system improvement

In recent decades, stochastic control systems have been widely used in industrial production, biomedicine, aerospace, military strategy and so on. In this paper, an approximate optimal strategy derived from a stochastic linear quadratic (SLQ) optimal control problem is considered, and a piecewise parameterization and optimization (PPAO) method is proposed. Firstly, using the principle of dynamic programming, the control form of SLQ optimal control problem is relevant to a Riccati differential equation. It is well known that the Riccati differential equation is difficult to be solved analytically. Thus, we present a PPAO method for finding an approximate optimal strategy for stochastic control problems. Here, a piecewise parameter control can be obtained by solving first-order differential equations rather than Riccati differential equations. Finally, the inventory control problems with different dimensions are used to justify the feasibility of PPAO method, and the results compared with the original optimal control are given. The results show that parametric control greatly simplifies the control form, and a small model error is ensured.