Balsa, CarlosGama, Sílvio M.A.2023-02-282023-02-282022Balsa, Carlos; Gama, Sílvio (2022). A numerical algorithm for optimal control problems with a viscous point vortex. In 15th APCA International Conference on Automatic Control and Soft Computing, CONTROLO 2022. Caparicahttp://hdl.handle.net/10198/27322The dynamics of passive tracers in flows dominated by perfect or viscous point vortices is a broad area of research that continues to attract the attention of numerous studies. Recently, there has been a particular interest in the application of control theory to these issues. Viscous point vortices are singular solutions of the two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in which the vorticity is concentrated at a finite number of points in the flow domain, each of which carries a certain amount of time-invariant circulation. By definition, a passive tracer is a point vortex with zero circulation. This paper describes some numerical investigations of passive tracers performed by viscous point vortices to find the energy-optimal displacement of a passive particle. The numerical results show the existence of near/quasi-optimal controls.engViscous point vortexPassive tracerControl problemNumerical optimizationconference paper10.1007/978-3-031-10047-5_64