Open boundary control problem for Navier-Stokes equations including a free surface: Data assimilation

This paper develops the data-assimilation procedure in order to allow for the assimilation of measurements of currents and free-surface elevations into an unsteady flow solution governed by the free-surface barotropic Navier-Stokes equations. The flow is considered in a 2D vertical section in which horizontal and vertical components of velocity are represented as well as the elevation of the free surface. Since a possible application is to the construction of a coastal (limited area) circulation model, the open boundary control problem is the main scope of the paper. The assimilation algorithm is built on the limited memory quasi-Newton LBFGS method guided by the adjoint sensitivities. The analytical step search, which is based on the solution of the tangent linear model, is used. We process the gradients to regularize the solution. In numerical experiments we consider different wave patterns with a purpose to specify a set of incomplete measurements, which could be sufficient for boundary-control identification. As a result of these experiments we formulate some important practical conclusions. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.