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Related papers: The Nonstochastic Control Problem

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We study the problem of data-driven, constrained control of unknown nonlinear dynamics from a single ongoing and finite-horizon trajectory. We consider a one-step optimal control problem with a smooth, black-box objective, typically a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-06-23 Abraham P. Vinod , Arie Israel , Ufuk Topcu

We exhibit optimal control strategies for a simple toy problem in which the underlying dynamics depend on a parameter that is initially unknown and must be learned. We consider a cost function posed over a finite time interval, in contrast…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-02-27 Charles L. Fefferman , Bernat Guillen Pegueroles , Clarence W. Rowley , Melanie Weber

This paper derives an optimal control strategy for a simple stochastic dynamical system with constant drift and an additive control input. Motivated by the example of a physical system with an unexpected change in its dynamics, we take the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-09 Daniel Gurevich , Debdipta Goswami , Charles L. Fefferman , Clarence W. Rowley

We consider a stochastic control problem which is composed of a controlled stochastic differential equation, and whose associated cost functional is defined through a controlled backward stochastic differential equation. Under appropriate…

Probability · Mathematics 2009-02-17 Rainer Buckdahn , Boubakeur Labed , Catherine Rainer , Lazhar Tamer

We consider a simple control problem in which the underlying dynamics depend on a parameter that is unknown and must be learned. We exhibit a control strategy which is optimal to within a multiplicative constant. While most authors find…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-15 Jacob Carruth , Maximilian F. Eggl , Charles Fefferman , Clarence W. Rowley , Melanie Weber

We study a class of adversarial bandit optimization problems in which the loss functions may be non-convex and non-smooth. In each round, the learner observes a loss that consists of an underlying linear component together with an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-30 Zhuoyu Cheng , Kohei Hatano , Eiji Takimoto

We investigate constrained optimal control problems for linear stochastic dynamical systems evolving in discrete time. We consider minimization of an expected value cost over a finite horizon. Hard constraints are introduced first, and then…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2011-07-07 Eugenio Cinquemani , Mayank Agarwal , Debasish Chatterjee , John Lygeros

We consider the problem of online control of systems with time-varying linear dynamics. This is a general formulation that is motivated by the use of local linearization in control of nonlinear dynamical systems. To state meaningful…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-15 Paula Gradu , Elad Hazan , Edgar Minasyan

We consider estimation and control in linear time-varying dynamical systems from the perspective of regret minimization. Unlike most prior work in this area, we focus on the problem of designing causal estimators and controllers which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-24 Gautam Goel , Babak Hassibi

This paper is concerned with a finite-horizon inverse control problem, which has the goal of reconstructing, from observations, the possibly non-convex and non-stationary cost driving the actions of an agent. In this context, we present a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-27 Emiland Garrabe , Hozefa Jesawada , Carmen Del Vecchio , Giovanni Russo

This paper studies the problem of controlling linear dynamical systems subject to point-wise-in-time constraints. We present an algorithm similar to online gradient descent, that can handle time-varying and a priori unknown convex cost…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-03 Marko Nonhoff , Matthias A. Müller

Here and in a companion paper, we consider a simple control problem in which the underlying dynamics depend on a parameter $a$ that is unknown and must be learned. In this paper, we assume that $a$ can be any real number and we do not…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-20 Jacob Carruth , Maximilian F. Eggl , Charles Fefferman , Clarence W. Rowley

We study online control of time-varying linear systems with unknown dynamics in the nonstochastic control model. At a high level, we demonstrate that this setting is \emph{qualitatively harder} than that of either unknown time-invariant or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-17 Edgar Minasyan , Paula Gradu , Max Simchowitz , Elad Hazan

We study the problem of online non-stochastic control (ONC), which is the control of a linear system under adversarial disturbances and adversarial cost functions, with the aim of minimizing the total cost incurred. A recent line of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-21 Vijeth Hebbar , Spencer Hutchinson , Mahnoosh Alizadeh , Cédric Langbort

This article investigates the problem of controlling linear time-invariant systems subject to time-varying and a priori unknown cost functions, state and input constraints, and exogenous disturbances. We combine the online convex…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-18 Marko Nonhoff , Emiliano Dall'Anese , Matthias A. Müller

We consider a simple control problem in which the underlying dynamics depend on a parameter $a$ that is unknown and must be learned. We study three variants of the control problem: Bayesian control, in which we have a prior belief about…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-12 Jacob Carruth , Maximilian F. Eggl , Charles Fefferman , Clarence W. Rowley

We consider control in linear time-varying dynamical systems from the perspective of regret minimization. Unlike most prior work in this area, we focus on the problem of designing an online controller which minimizes regret against the best…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-03 Gautam Goel , Babak Hassibi

We consider a stochastic control problem where the set of strict (classical) controls is not necessarily convex, and the system is governed by a nonlinear backward stochastic differential equation. By introducing a new approach, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2008-12-20 Seid Bahlali

We study the problem of Online Convex Optimization (OCO) with memory, which allows loss functions to depend on past decisions and thus captures temporal effects of learning problems. In this paper, we introduce dynamic policy regret as the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-16 Peng Zhao , Yu-Hu Yan , Yu-Xiang Wang , Zhi-Hua Zhou

We consider a simple linear control problem in which a single parameter $b$, describing the effect of the control variable, is unknown and must be learned. We work in the setting of agnostic control: we allow $b$ to be any real number and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-11-28 Jacob Carruth