Free terminal time optimal control problem for the treatment of HIV infection

In this work, an optimal control approach is presented in order to propose an optimal therapy for the treatment HIV infection using a combination of two appropriate treatment strategies. The optimal treatment duration and the optimal medications amount are considered. The main objective of this study is to be able to maximize the benet based on number of healthy CD4+ T-cells and CTL immune cells and to minimize the infection level and the overall treatment cost while optimizing the duration of therapy. The free terminal time optimal control problem is formulated and the Pontryagin's maximum principle is employed to provide the explicit formulations of the optimal controls. The corresponding optimality system with the additional transversality condition for the terminal time is derived and solved numerically using an adapted iterative method with a Runge-Kutta fourth order scheme and a gradient method routine.