Optimal Control of Rumor Spreading Model with Consideration of Psychological Factors and Time Delay

Abstract

Rumors have rapidly increasing influence on the society as well as individual life in the information age. How to control the spread of such rumors effectively has become an urgent problem to be solved. In this paper, we consider an optimal control of rumor spreading model with psychological factors and time delay. Firstly, we introduce a realistic optimal control of rumor spreading model with consideration of Holling-type II functional response and time delay. Secondly, by introducing two control strategies of both promoting scientific knowledge and releasing official information, we formulate an optimal control problem to minimize both the number of ignorant individuals and spreaders and the control cost. Thirdly, we prove the existence and the necessary conditions of optimal control strategies theoretically based on Pontryagin’s maximum principle. Our results indicate that the proposed control strategies are effective in reducing the number of spreaders and ignorant individuals and minimizing control cost.