Numerical optimal control of the wave equation: optimal boundary control of a string to rest in finite time

In many real-life applications of optimal control problems with constraints in form of partial differential equations (PDEs), hyperbolic equations are involved which typically describe transport processes. Since hyperbolic equations usually propagate discontinuities of initial or boundary conditions into the domain on which the solution lives or can develop discontinuities even in the presence of smooth data, problems of this type constitute a severe challenge for both theory and numerics of PDE constrained optimization.