Interface controls are unknown functions used as Dirichlet or Robin boundary data on the interfaces of an overlapping decomposition designed for solving second order elliptic boundary value problems. The controls are computed through an optimal control problem with either distributed or interface observation. Numerical results show that, when interface observation is considered, the resulting interface control domain decomposition method is robust with respect to coefficients variations; it can exploit nonconforming meshes and provides optimal convergence with respect to the discretization parameters; finally it can be easily used to face heterogeneous advection--advection-diffusion couplings. © 2013, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

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