A direct method based on the Chebyshev polynomials for a new class of nonlinear variable-order fractional 2D optimal control problems

The main goal of this study is to develop an efficient matrix approach for a new class of nonlinear 2D optimal control problems (OCPs) affected by variable-order fractional dynamical systems. The offered approach is established upon the shifted Chebyshev polynomials (SCPs) and their operational matrices. Through the way, a new operational matrix (OM) of variable-order fractional derivative is derived for the mentioned polynomials.The necessary optimality conditions are reduced to algebraic systems of equations by using the SCPs expansions of the state and control variables, and applying the method of constrained extrema. More precisely, the state and control variables are expanded in components of the SCPs with undetermined coefficients. Then these expansions are substituted in the cost functional and the 2D Gauss-Legendre quadrature rule is utilized to compute the double integral and consequently achieve a nonlinear algebraic equation.After that, the generated OM is employed to extract some algebraic equations from the approximated fractional dynamical system. Finally, the procedure of the constrained extremum is used by coupling the algebraic constraints yielded from the dynamical system and the initial and boundary conditions with the algebraic equation extracted from the cost functional by a set of unknown Lagrange multipliers. The method is established for three various types of boundary conditions.The precision of the proposed approach is examined through various types of test examples.Numerical simulations confirm the suggested approach is very accurate to provide satisfactory results.