Related papers: Using SOS and Sublevel Set Volume Minimization for…
We consider the problem of minimizing a convex objective function $F$ when one can only evaluate its noisy approximation $\hat{F}$. Unless one assumes some structure on the noise, $\hat{F}$ may be an arbitrary nonconvex function, making the…
We study the convex hulls of reachable sets of nonlinear systems with bounded disturbances and uncertain initial conditions. Reachable sets play a critical role in control, but remain notoriously challenging to compute, and existing…
We propose a method to outer bound forward reachable sets on finite horizons for uncertain nonlinear systems with polynomial dynamics. This method makes use of time-dependent polynomial storage functions that satisfy appropriate dissipation…
We propose a variable metric framework for minimizing the sum of a self-concordant function and a possibly non-smooth convex function, endowed with an easily computable proximal operator. We theoretically establish the convergence of our…
We describe an approximate dynamic programming method for stochastic control problems on infinite state and input spaces. The optimal value function is approximated by a linear combination of basis functions with coefficients as decision…
This paper considers sparse polynomial optimization with unbounded sets. When the problem possesses correlative sparsity, we propose a sparse homogenized Moment-SOS hierarchy with perturbations to solve it. The new hierarchy introduces one…
Motivated by stability analysis of large scale power systems, we describe how the Lasserre (moment-sums of squares, SOS) hierarchy can be used to generate outer approximations of the region of attraction (ROA) of sparse polynomial…
We develop and analyze a set of new sequential simulation-optimization algorithms for large-scale multi-dimensional discrete optimization via simulation problems with a convexity structure. The "large-scale" notion refers to that the…
This work presents a sum-of-squares (SOS) based framework to perform data-driven stabilization and robust control tasks on discrete-time linear systems where the full-state observations are corrupted by L-infinity bounded input,…
Constrained Optimization solution algorithms are restricted to point based solutions. In practice, single or multiple objectives must be satisfied, wherein both the objective function and constraints can be non-convex resulting in multiple…
Optimization over non-negative polynomials is fundamental for nonlinear systems analysis and control. We investigate the relation between three tractable relaxations for optimizing over sparse non-negative polynomials: sparse sum-of-squares…
We demonstrate applications of algebraic techniques that optimize and certify polynomial inequalities to problems of interest in the operations research and transportation engineering communities. Three problems are considered: (i) wireless…
A stochastic gradient method for finite-sum minimization subject to deterministic linear constraints is proposed and analyzed. The procedure presented adapts the projected gradient method on convex set to the use of both a stochastic…
We introduce the concept of strong high-order approximate minimizers for nonconvex optimization problems. These apply in both standard smooth and composite non-smooth settings, and additionally allow convex or inexpensive constraints. An…
In multi-objective optimization, computing the entire non-dominated set (also known as the Pareto front or the Pareto frontier) is often intractable. However, for any multiplicative factor greater than one, an approximation set can be…
Successive quadratic approximations, or second-order proximal methods, are useful for minimizing functions that are a sum of a smooth part and a convex, possibly nonsmooth part that promotes regularization. Most analyses of iteration…
In this work, we propose a novel optimization model termed "sum-of-minimum" optimization. This model seeks to minimize the sum or average of $N$ objective functions over $k$ parameters, where each objective takes the minimum value of a…
This paper presents an algorithm to maximize the volume of an affine slice through a given semialgebraic set. This slice-volume task is formulated as an infinite-dimensional linear program in continuous functions, inspired by prior work in…
This paper proposes low-complexity algorithms for finding approximate second-order stationary points (SOSPs) of problems with smooth non-convex objective and linear constraints. While finding (approximate) SOSPs is computationally…
We develop new tools in the theory of nonlinear random matrices and apply them to study the performance of the Sum of Squares (SoS) hierarchy on average-case problems. The SoS hierarchy is a powerful optimization technique that has achieved…