  We present an efficient strategy for controlling a vast range of
non-integrable quantum many body one-dimensional systems that can be merged
with state-of-the-art tensor network simulation methods like the density Matrix
Renormalization Group. To demonstrate its potential, we employ it to solve a
major issue in current optical-lattice physics with ultra-cold atoms: we show
how to reduce by about two orders of magnitudes the time needed to bring a
superfluid gas into a Mott insulator state, while suppressing defects by more
than one order of magnitude as compared to current experiments [1]. Finally, we
show that the optimal pulse is robust against atom number fluctuations.
