Contact Hamiltonian dynamics is a subject that has still a short history, but with relevant applications in many areas: thermodynamics, cosmology, control theory, and neurogeometry, among others. In recent years there has been a great effort to study this type of dynamics both in theoretical aspects and in its potential applications in geometric mechanics and mathematical physics. This paper is intended to be a review of some of the results that the authors and their collaborators have recently obtained on the subject.
In this paper we combine two main topics in mechanics and optimal control theory: contact Hamiltonian systems and Pontryagin Maximum Principle. As an important result, among others, we develop a contact Pontryagin Maximum Principle that permits to deal with optimal control problems with dissipation. We also consider the Herglotz optimal control problem, which is simultaneously a generalization of the Herglotz variational principle and an optimal control problem. An application to the study of a thermodynamic system is provided.
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