English

Convex Optimal Uncertainty Quantification

Optimization and Control 2015-04-29 v2

Abstract

Optimal uncertainty quantification (OUQ) is a framework for numerical extreme-case analysis of stochastic systems with imperfect knowledge of the underlying probability distribution. This paper presents sufficient conditions under which an OUQ problem can be reformulated as a finite-dimensional convex optimization problem, for which efficient numerical solutions can be obtained. The sufficient conditions include that the objective function is piecewise concave and the constraints are piecewise convex. In particular, we show that piecewise concave objective functions may appear in applications where the objective is defined by the optimal value of a parameterized linear program.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1311.7130,
  title  = {Convex Optimal Uncertainty Quantification},
  author = {Shuo Han and Molei Tao and Ufuk Topcu and Houman Owhadi and Richard M. Murray},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.7130},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in SIAM Journal on Optimization

R2 v1 2026-06-22T02:16:24.521Z