Related papers: Meshfree Approximation for Stochastic Optimal Cont…
We propose joining a flexible mesh design with an integrated residual transcription in order to improve the accuracy of numerical solutions to optimal control problems. This approach is particularly useful when state or input trajectories…
The optimal control problem of stochastic systems is commonly solved via robust or scenario-based optimization methods, which are both challenging to scale to long optimization horizons. We cast the optimal control problem of a stochastic…
This paper presents a method to approximately solve stochastic optimal control problems in which the cost function and the system dynamics are polynomial. For stochastic systems with polynomial dynamics, the moments of the state can be…
Optimal control of stochastic nonlinear dynamical systems is a major challenge in the domain of robot learning. Given the intractability of the global control problem, state-of-the-art algorithms focus on approximate sequential optimization…
We propose a stochastic approximation method for approximating the efficient frontier of chance-constrained nonlinear programs. Our approach is based on a bi-objective viewpoint of chance-constrained programs that seeks solutions on the…
Projected Gradient Descent denotes a class of iterative methods for solving optimization programs. Its applicability to convex optimization programs has gained significant popularity for its intuitive implementation that involves only…
Navigating a collision-free and optimal trajectory for a robot is a challenging task, particularly in environments with moving obstacles such as humans. We formulate this problem as a stochastic optimal control problem. Since solving the…
Solutions to optimal control problems can be discontinuous, even if all the functionals defining the problem are smooth. This can cause difficulties when numerically computing solutions to these problems. While conventional numerical…
Recently path integral methods have been developed for stochastic optimal control for a wide class of models with non-linear dynamics in continuous space-time. Path integral methods find the control that minimizes the expected cost-to-go.…
Selecting the best hyperparameters for a particular optimization instance, such as the learning rate and momentum, is an important but nonconvex problem. As a result, iterative optimization methods such as hypergradient descent lack global…
Stochastic optimal control and games have a wide range of applications, from finance and economics to social sciences, robotics, and energy management. Many real-world applications involve complex models that have driven the development of…
This paper details a methodology to transcribe an optimal control problem into a nonlinear program for generation of the trajectories that optimize a given functional by approximating only the highest order derivatives of a given system's…
This paper presents an algorithmic framework for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems using only stochastic function evaluations. We employ central finite-difference based gradient estimation methods to approximate the…
This paper addresses the problem of hierarchical task control, where a robotic system must perform multiple subtasks with varying levels of priority. A commonly used approach for hierarchical control is the null-space projection technique,…
Optimal control under uncertainty is a prevailing challenge for many reasons. One of the critical difficulties lies in producing tractable solutions for the underlying stochastic optimization problem. We show how advanced approximate…
We consider policy gradient methods for stochastic optimal control problem in continuous time. In particular, we analyze the gradient flow for the control, viewed as a continuous time limit of the policy gradient method. We prove the global…
This paper introduces new parameter-free first-order methods for convex optimization problems in which the objective function exhibits H\"{o}lder smoothness. Inspired by the recently proposed distance-over-gradient (DOG) technique, we…
Proximal gradient method has been playing an important role to solve many machine learning tasks, especially for the nonsmooth problems. However, in some machine learning problems such as the bandit model and the black-box learning problem,…
In many human-in-the-loop robotic applications such as robot-assisted surgery and remote teleoperation, predicting the intended motion of the human operator may be useful for successful implementation of shared control, guidance virtual…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method is popular for solving non-convex optimization problems in machine learning. This work investigates SGD from a viewpoint of graduated optimization, which is a widely applied approach for non-convex…