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Closed-loop optimal control design for high-dimensional nonlinear systems has been a long-standing challenge. Traditional methods, such as solving the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation, suffer from the curse of dimensionality.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-01 Xuanxi Zhang , Jihao Long , Wei Hu , Weinan E , Jiequn Han

We introduce a novel approach based on stochastic optimization to find the optimal sampling distribution for the data-driven stability analysis of switched linear systems. Our goal is to address limitations of existing approaches, in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-01 Alexis Vuille , Guillaume O. Berger , Raphaël M. Jungers

We address the problem of sampling double-ended diffusive paths. The ensemble of paths is expressed using a symmetric version of the Onsager-Machlup formula, which only requires evaluation of the force field and which, upon direct time…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2011-07-27 Thomas F. Miller , Cristian Predescu

Modern methods of generative modelling and unpaired data translation based on Schr\"odinger bridges and stochastic optimal control theory aim to transform an initial density to a target one in an optimal way. In the present paper, we assume…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-24 Nikita Puchkin , Denis Suchkov , Alexey Naumov , Denis Belomestny

Learning to sample from complex unnormalized distributions over discrete domains emerged as a promising research direction with applications in statistical physics, variational inference, and combinatorial optimization. Recent work has…

We present a sampling-based Model Predictive Control (MPC) method that implements Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) as an \emph{Ising machine}, suitable for novel forms of probabilistic computing. By expressing the control problem as a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-12-18 Lorin Werthen-Brabants , Pieter Simoens

We consider the problem to identify the most likely flow in phase space, of (inertial) particles under stochastic forcing, that is in agreement with spatial (marginal) distributions that are specified at a set of points in time. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-02-25 Yongxin Chen , Giovanni Conforti , Tryphon T. Georgiou , Luigia Ripani

We introduce path-sampled integrated gradients (PS-IG), a framework that generalizes feature attribution by computing the expected value over baselines sampled along the linear interpolation path. We prove that PS-IG is mathematically…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-17 Firuz Kamalov , Fadi Thabtah , R. Sivaraj , Neda Abdelhamid

Optimal control theory deals with finding protocols to steer a system between assigned initial and final states, such that a trajectory-dependent cost function is minimized. The application of optimal control to stochastic systems is an…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2024-09-18 Julia Sanders , Marco Baldovin , Paolo Muratore-Ginanneschi

We introduce a novel stochastic version of the non-reversible, rejection-free Bouncy Particle Sampler (BPS), a Markov process whose sample trajectories are piecewise linear. The algorithm is based on simulating first arrival times in a…

Computation · Statistics 2017-06-15 Ari Pakman , Dar Gilboa , David Carlson , Liam Paninski

A new particle-based sampling and approximate inference method, based on electrostatics and Newton mechanics principles, is introduced with theoretical ground, algorithm design and experimental validation. This method simulates an…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-07-01 Yongchao Huang

In this study, we introduce a novel method for generating new synthetic samples that are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) from high-dimensional real-valued probability distributions, as defined implicitly by a set of Ground…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-07-09 Hamidreza Behjoo , Michael Chertkov

This paper considers linear-quadratic control of a non-linear dynamical system subject to arbitrary cost. I show that for this class of stochastic control problems the non-linear Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation can be transformed into a…

General Physics · Physics 2009-11-11 H. J. Kappen

We consider online computation of expectations of additive state functionals under general path probability measures proportional to products of unnormalised transition densities. These transition densities are assumed to be intractable but…

Computation · Statistics 2021-04-13 Pierre Gloaguen , Sylvain Le Corff , Jimmy Olsson

The unbalanced Schr\"odinger bridge problem (uSBP) seeks to interpolate between a probability measure $\rho_0$ and a sub-probability measure $\rho_T$ while minimizing KL divergence to a reference measure $\mathbf{R}$ on a path space. In…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-12-16 Andrei Zlotchevski , Linan Chen

This paper introduces a method for Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) control that optimizes sample generation towards an optimal trajectory through Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD). MPPI relies upon predictive rollout of…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-01 Jace Aldrich , Odest Chadwicke Jenkins

Optimal and safety-critical control are fundamental problems for stochastic systems, and are widely considered in real-world scenarios such as robotic manipulation and autonomous driving. In this paper, we consider the problem of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-05-10 Zhuoyuan Wang , Reece Keller , Xiyu Deng , Kenta Hoshino , Takashi Tanaka , Yorie Nakahira

Sampling efficiently from a target unnormalized probability density remains a core challenge, with relevance across countless high-impact scientific applications. A promising approach towards this challenge is the design of amortized…

We introduce the notion of importance sampling under embedded barrier state control, titled Safety Controlled Model Predictive Path Integral Control (SC-MPPI). For robotic systems operating in an environment with multiple constraints, hard…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-03-08 Manan Gandhi , Hassan Almubarak , Evangelos Theodorou

This work presents an efficient method to solve a class of continuous-time, continuous-space stochastic optimal control problems of robot motion in a cluttered environment. The method builds upon a path integral representation of the…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2016-03-10 Jung-Su Ha , Han-Lim Choi