Approximation properties of sum-up rounding in the presence of vanishing constraints

Abstract:

Approximation algorithms like sum-up rounding that allow to compute integer-valued approximations of the continuous controls in a weak$^*$ sense have attracted interest recently. They allow to approximate (optimal) feasible solutions of continuous relaxations of mixed-integer control problems (MIOCPs) with integer controls arbitrarily close. To this end, they use compactness properties of the underlying state equation, a feature that is tied to the infinite-dimensional vantage point. In this work, we consider a class of MIOCPs that are constrained by pointwise mixed state-control constraints.

We show that a continuous relaxation that involves so-called vanishing constraints has beneficial properties for the described approximation methodology. Moreover, we complete recent work on a variant of the sum-up rounding algorithm for this problem class. In particular, we prove that the observed infeasibility of the produced integer-valued controls vanishes in an $L^\infty$-sense with respect to the considered relaxation. Moreover, we improve the bound on the control approximation error to a value that is asymptotically tight.