Related papers: Timescale Separation in Autonomous Optimization
Motion trajectory planning is one crucial aspect for automated vehicles, as it governs the own future behavior in a dynamically changing environment. A good utilization of a vehicle's characteristics requires the consideration of the…
Decentralized optimization enables a network of agents to cooperatively optimize an overall objective function without a central coordinator and is gaining increased attention in domains as diverse as control, sensor networks, data mining,…
Optimal control problems naturally arise in many scientific applications where one wishes to steer a dynamical system from a certain initial state $\mathbf{x}_0$ to a desired target state $\mathbf{x}^*$ in finite time $T$. Recent advances…
Iterative optimization algorithms depend on access to information about the objective function. In a differentiable programming framework, this information, such as gradients, can be automatically derived from the computational graph. We…
Solving optimal control problems to determine a stabilizing controller involves a significant computational effort. Time-varying optimal control provides a remedy by designing a tracking system, given as an ordinary differential equation,…
The linear quadratic regulator is the fundamental problem of optimal control. Its state feedback version was set and solved in the early 1960s. However the static output feedback problem has no explicit-form solution. It is suggested to…
This paper considers the problem of regulating a linear dynamical system to the solution of a convex optimization problem with an unknown or partially-known cost. We design a data-driven feedback controller - based on gradient flow dynamics…
This paper considers the problem of controlling a dynamical system when the state cannot be directly measured and the control performance metrics are unknown or partially known. In particular, we focus on the design of data-driven…
We consider a zeroth-order distributed optimization problem, where the global objective function is a black-box function and, as such, its gradient information is inaccessible to the local agents. Instead, the local agents can only use the…
This paper investigates the problem of tracking solutions of stochastic optimization problems with time-varying costs that depend on random variables with decision-dependent distributions. In this context, we propose the use of an online…
The performance of robots in high-level tasks depends on the quality of their lower-level controller, which requires fine-tuning. However, the intrinsically nonlinear dynamics and controllers make tuning a challenging task when it is done…
A novel method for control of dynamical systems, proposed in the paper, ensures an output signal belonging to the given set at any time. The method is based on a special change of coordinates such that the initial problem with given…
From a mathematical point of view self-organization can be described as patterns to which certain dynamical systems modeling social dynamics tend spontaneously to be attracted. In this paper we explore situations beyond self-organization,…
Feedback control algorithms traditionally rely on periodic execution on digital platforms. While this simplifies design and analysis, it often leads to inefficient resource usage (e.g., CPU, network bandwidth) in embedded control and shared…
Simulation-based optimization using agent-based models is typically carried out under the assumption that the gradient describing the sensitivity of the simulation output to the input cannot be evaluated directly. To still apply…
This paper is concerned with the design of optimal control for finite-dimensional control-affine nonlinear dynamical systems. We introduce an optimal control problem that specifically optimizes nonlinear observability in addition to…
Treating optimization methods as dynamical systems can be traced back centuries ago in order to comprehend the notions and behaviors of optimization methods. Lately, this mind set has become the driving force to design new optimization…
Control of the stochastic dynamics of a quantum system is indispensable in fields such as quantum information processing and metrology. However, there is no general ready-made approach to the design of efficient control strategies. Here, we…
When deploying autonomous systems in unknown and changing environments, it is critical that their motion planning and control algorithms are computationally efficient and can be reapplied online in real time, whilst providing theoretical…
We study how to safely control nonlinear control-affine systems that are corrupted with bounded non-stochastic noise, i.e., noise that is unknown a priori and that is not necessarily governed by a stochastic model. We focus on safety…