  We propose a direct numerical method for the solution of an optimal control
problem governed by a two-side space-fractional diffusion equation. The
presented method contains two main steps. In the first step, the space variable
is discretized by using the Jacobi-Gauss pseudospectral discretization and, in
this way, the original problem is transformed into a classical integer-order
optimal control problem. The main challenge, which we faced in this step, is to
derive the left and right fractional differentiation matrices. In this respect,
novel techniques for derivation of these matrices are presented. In the second
step, the Legendre-Gauss-Radau pseudospectral method is employed. With these
two steps, the original problem is converted into a convex quadratic
optimization problem, which can be solved efficiently by available methods. Our
approach can be easily implemented and extended to cover fractional optimal
control problems with state constraints. Five test examples are provided to
demonstrate the efficiency and validity of the presented method. The results
show that our method reaches the solutions with good accuracy and a low CPU
time.

Optimization and Control