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To achieve highly dynamic jumps of legged robots, it is essential to control the rotational dynamics of the robot. In this paper, we aim to improve the jumping performance by proposing a unified model for planning highly dynamic jumps that…
We propose a new randomized coordinate descent method for a convex optimization template with broad applications. Our analysis relies on a novel combination of four ideas applied to the primal-dual gap function: smoothing, acceleration,…
We consider a class of structured fractional minimization problems, in which the numerator part of the objective is the sum of a differentiable convex function and a convex non-smooth function, while the denominator part is a convex or…
Model Predictive Control (MPC) has proven to be a powerful tool for the control of systems with constraints. Nonetheless, in many applications, a major challenge arises, that is finding the optimal solution within a single sampling instant…
The state-of-the-art methods for solving optimization problems in big dimensions are variants of randomized coordinate descent (RCD). In this paper we introduce a fundamentally new type of acceleration strategy for RCD based on the…
Anisotropic rotation averaging has recently been explored as a natural extension of respective isotropic methods. In the anisotropic formulation, uncertainties of the estimated relative rotations -- obtained via standard two-view…
Continuum soft robots are inherently underactuated and subject to intrinsic input constraints, making dynamic control particularly challenging, especially in hybrid rigid-soft robots. While most existing methods focus on quasi-static…
Daily tasks require us to use our whole body to manipulate objects, for instance when our hands are unavailable. We consider the issue of providing humanoid robots with the ability to autonomously perform similar whole-body manipulation…
Block-coordinate descent algorithms and alternating minimization methods are fundamental optimization algorithms and an important primitive in large-scale optimization and machine learning. While various block-coordinate-descent-type…
(Block-)coordinate minimization is an iterative optimization method which in every iteration finds a global minimum of the objective over a variable or a subset of variables, while keeping the remaining variables constant. While for some…
In this paper we develop random block coordinate gradient descent methods for minimizing large scale linearly constrained separable convex problems over networks. Since we have coupled constraints in the problem, we devise an algorithm that…
Real-world environments are inherently uncertain, and to operate safely in these environments robots must be able to plan around this uncertainty. In the context of motion planning, we desire systems that can maintain an acceptable level of…
In this paper, we propose a new stochastic column-block gradient descent method for solving nonlinear systems of equations. It has a descent direction and holds an approximately optimal step size obtained through an optimization problem. We…
Training deep neural networks (DNNs) efficiently is a challenge due to the associated highly nonconvex optimization. The backpropagation (backprop) algorithm has long been the most widely used algorithm for gradient computation of…
This study presents a theoretical method for planning and controlling agile bipedal locomotion based on robustly tracking a set of non-periodic keyframe states. Based on centroidal momentum dynamics, we formulate a hybrid phase-space…
The article proposes an exact approach to find the global solution of a nonconvex semivectorial bilevel optimization problem, where the objective functions at each level are pseudoconvex, and the constraints are quasiconvex. Due to its…
Stochastic gradient descent (\textsc{Sgd}) methods are the most powerful optimization tools in training machine learning and deep learning models. Moreover, acceleration (a.k.a. momentum) methods and diagonal scaling (a.k.a. adaptive…
Safe operation of systems such as robots requires them to plan and execute trajectories subject to safety constraints. When those systems are subject to uncertainties in their dynamics, it is challenging to ensure that the constraints are…
To economically deploy robotic manipulators the programming and execution of robot motions must be swift. To this end, we propose a novel, constraint-based method to intuitively specify sequential manipulation tasks and to compute…
In this paper, we propose the Asynchronous Accelerated Nonuniform Randomized Block Coordinate Descent algorithm (A2BCD), the first asynchronous Nesterov-accelerated algorithm that achieves optimal complexity. This parallel algorithm solves…