Related papers: Derivative-free methods for mixed-integer nonsmoot…
In this paper, the problem of online distributed zeroth-order optimization subject to a set constraint is studied via a multi-agent network, where each agent can communicate with its immediate neighbors via a time-varying directed graph.…
This paper proposes a novel technique called "successive stochastic smoothing" that optimizes nonsmooth and discontinuous functions while considering various constraints. Our methodology enables local and global optimization, making it a…
This paper provides a zeroth-order optimisation framework for non-smooth and possibly non-convex cost functions with matrix parameters that are real and symmetric. We provide complexity bounds on the number of iterations required to ensure…
We consider mixed-integer optimal control problems with combinatorial constraints that couple over time such as minimum dwell times. We analyze a lifting and decomposition approach into a mixed-integer optimal control problem without…
Zeroth-order (a.k.a, derivative-free) methods are a class of effective optimization methods for solving complex machine learning problems, where gradients of the objective functions are not available or computationally prohibitive.…
Linearized alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) as an extension of ADMM has been widely used to solve linearly constrained problems in signal processing, machine leaning, communications, and many other fields. Despite its…
In this paper, we propose a scaled gradient modified non-monotone line search method for solving constrained minimization problems, and explore several specific properties of this method, namely, its convergence analysis. We discuss the…
In this paper we analyze a zeroth-order proximal stochastic gradient method suitable for the minimization of weakly convex stochastic optimization problems. We consider nonsmooth and nonlinear stochastic composite problems, for which…
We introduce a class of first-order methods for smooth constrained optimization that are based on an analogy to non-smooth dynamical systems. Two distinctive features of our approach are that (i) projections or optimizations over the entire…
This paper proposes a new inexact manifold proximal linear (IManPL) algorithm for solving nonsmooth, nonconvex composite optimization problems over an embedded submanifold. At each iteration, IManPL solves a convex subproblem inexactly,…
Many nonlinear optimal control and optimization problems involve constraints that combine continuous dynamics with discrete logic conditions. Standard approaches typically rely on mixed-integer programming, which introduces scalability…
In this work, we introduce new direct search schemes for the solution of bilevel optimization (BO) problems. Our methods rely on a fixed accuracy black box oracle for the lower-level problem, and deal both with smooth and potentially…
This paper proposes the algorithm NOWPAC (Nonlinear Optimization With Path-Augmented Constraints) for nonlinear constrained derivative-free optimization. The algorithm uses a trust region framework based on fully linear models for the…
We propose a stochastic gradient framework for solving stochastic composite convex optimization problems with (possibly) infinite number of linear inclusion constraints that need to be satisfied almost surely. We use smoothing and homotopy…
In this paper, we investigate an interesting and important stopping problem mixed with stochastic controls and a \textit{nonsmooth} utility over a finite time horizon. The paper aims to develop new methodologies, which are significantly…
In this paper, we propose and analyze algorithms for zeroth-order optimization of non-convex composite objectives, focusing on reducing the complexity dependence on dimensionality. This is achieved by exploiting the low dimensional…
We consider the case of derivative-free algorithms for non-convex optimization, also known as zero order algorithms, that use only function evaluations rather than gradients. For a wide variety of gradient approximators based on finite…
Distributed multi-agent optimization finds many applications in distributed learning, control, estimation, etc. Most existing algorithms assume knowledge of first-order information of the objective and have been analyzed for convex…
We address composite optimization problems, which consist in minimizing the sum of a smooth and a merely lower semicontinuous function, without any convexity assumptions. Numerical solutions of these problems can be obtained by proximal…
In many real-world problems, first-order (FO) derivative evaluations are too expensive or even inaccessible. For solving these problems, zeroth-order (ZO) methods that only need function evaluations are often more efficient than FO methods…