LANS Informal Seminar: Kathrin Hatz

Seminar Title: Estimating Parameters in Optimal Control Models
Speaker: Kathrin Hatz, University of Heidelberg

Date/Time: 2010-11-01 15:00
Location: Bldg 240 Conference Center 1404-1405

Description:
We are interested in numerical methods for identifying models that describe optimal processes in nature, such as human gait. Our goal is to identify a model that describes the gait of Cerebral Palsy (CP) patients. A CP gait model provides the possibility to classify and evaluate gaits, and most importantly, it affords a basis for treatment planing. Mathematically, a CP model can be described by an optimal control problem (OCP) which includes parameters that cannot be derived theoretically and need to be determined form observation data. This leads to a challenging parameter estimation problem whose constraints include an optimal control problem. We present three different approaches (a derivative-free optimization technique, a bundle method, and an SQP approach) for solving this problem and provide numerical results for two benchmark problems.