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Many control policies used in various applications determine the input or action by solving a convex optimization problem that depends on the current state and some parameters. Common examples of such convex optimization control policies…
In this paper we propose a corrected semi-proximal ADMM (alternating direction method of multipliers) for the general $p$-block $(p\!\ge 3)$ convex optimization problems with linear constraints, aiming to resolve the dilemma that almost all…
Second-order necessary optimality conditions for nonlinear conic programming problems that depend on a single Lagrange multiplier are usually built under nondegeneracy and strict complementarity. In this paper we establish a condition of…
We propose a new risk-constrained reformulation of the standard Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) problem. Our framework is motivated by the fact that the classical (risk-neutral) LQR controller, although optimal in expectation, might be…
We investigate the use of linear programming tools for solving semidefinite programming relaxations of quadratically constrained quadratic problems. Classes of valid linear inequalities are presented, including sparse PSD cuts, and…
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…
The classical alternating current optimal power flow problem is highly nonconvex and generally hard to solve. Convex relaxations, in particular semidefinite, second-order cone, convex quadratic, and linear relaxations, have recently…
This paper studies distributionally robust optimization (DRO) when the ambiguity set is given by moments for the distributions. The objective and constraints are given by polynomials in decision variables. We reformulate the DRO with…
We present high-probability (and expectation) complexity bounds for two versions of stochastic adaptive regularization methods with cubics (SARC), also known as regularized Newton methods. The first algorithm aims to find first-order…
Semidefinite programs (SDP) are one of the most versatile frameworks in numerical optimization, serving as generalizations of many conic programs and as relaxations of NP-hard combinatorial problems. Their main drawback is their…
Quadratic Programming (QP) is the well-studied problem of maximizing over {-1,1} values the quadratic form \sum_{i \ne j} a_{ij} x_i x_j. QP captures many known combinatorial optimization problems, and assuming the unique games conjecture,…
This paper extends the RRT* algorithm, a recently developed but widely-used sampling-based optimal motion planner, in order to effectively handle nonlinear kinodynamic constraints. Nonlinearity in kinodynamic differential constraints often…
We consider least squares semidefinite programming (LSSDP) where the primal matrix variable must satisfy given linear equality and inequality constraints, and must also lie in the intersection of the cone of symmetric positive semidefinite…
In this paper, we consider nonconvex optimization problems with nonsmooth nonconvex objective function and nonlinear equality constraints. We assume that both the objective function and the functional constraints can be separated into 2…
In model predictive control (MPC) an optimization problem has to be solved at each time step, which in real-time applications makes it important to solve these optimization problems efficiently and to have good upper bounds on worst-case…
This dissertation makes three main contributions. First, We identify a new connection between policy gradient and dynamic programming in MMDPs and propose the Coordinate Ascent Dynamic Programming (CADP) algorithm to compute a Markov policy…
Infinite-dimensional linear conic formulations are described for nonlinear optimal control problems. The primal linear problem consists of finding occupation measures supported on optimal relaxed controlled trajectories, whereas the dual…
We develop a new method called affine facial reduction (FR) for recovering Slater's condition for semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations of combinatorial optimization (CO) problems. Affine FR is a user-friendly method, as it is fully…
Recent work [Ran22] formulated a class of optimal control problems involving positive linear systems, linear stage costs, and elementwise constraints on control. It was shown that the problem admits linear optimal cost and the associated…
Parabolic optimal control problems with control constraints are generally challenging, from either theoretical analysis or algorithmic design perspectives. Conceptually, the well-known alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) can…