Related papers: Cautious optimization via data informativity
Uncertainty quantification is essential when deploying learning-based control methods in safety-critical systems. This is commonly realized by constructing uncertainty tubes that enclose the unknown function of interest, e.g., the reward…
In many real world problems, optimization decisions have to be made with limited information. The decision maker may have no a priori or posteriori data about the often nonconvex objective function except from on a limited number of points…
An algorithm based on the interior-point methodology for solving continuous nonlinearly constrained optimization problems is proposed, analyzed, and tested. The distinguishing feature of the algorithm is that it presumes that only noisy…
In this paper we focus on the problem of assigning uncertainties to single-point predictions generated by a deterministic model that outputs a continuous variable. This problem applies to any state-of-the-art physics or engineering models…
Computational level explanations based on optimal feedback control with signal-dependent noise have been able to account for a vast array of phenomena in human sensorimotor behavior. However, commonly a cost function needs to be assumed for…
Bayesian optimisation (BO) has been a successful approach to optimise functions which are expensive to evaluate and whose observations are noisy. Classical BO algorithms, however, do not account for errors about the location where…
In this paper, we consider adaptive estimation of an unknown planar compact, convex set from noisy measurements of its support function on a uniform grid. Both the problem of estimating the support function at a point and that of estimating…
In many learning based control methodologies, learning the unknown dynamic model precedes the control phase, while the aim is to control the system such that it remains in some safe region of the state space. In this work, our aim is to…
Data-driven control in unknown environments requires a clear understanding of the involved uncertainties for ensuring safety and efficient exploration. While aleatoric uncertainty that arises from measurement noise can often be explicitly…
We consider a non-stationary variant of a sequential stochastic optimization problem, in which the underlying cost functions may change along the horizon. We propose a measure, termed variation budget, that controls the extent of said…
We exhibit optimal control strategies for a simple toy problem in which the underlying dynamics depend on a parameter that is initially unknown and must be learned. We consider a cost function posed over a finite time interval, in contrast…
Learning robot controllers by minimizing a black-box objective cost using Bayesian optimization (BO) can be time-consuming and challenging. It is very often the case that some roll-outs result in failure behaviors, causing premature…
We consider the optimization of an uncertain objective over continuous and multi-dimensional decision spaces in problems in which we are only provided with observational data. We propose a novel algorithmic framework that is tractable,…
This paper concerns the study of optimal (supremum and infimum) uncertainty bounds for systems where the input (or prior) probability measure is only partially/imperfectly known (e.g., with only statistical moments and/or on a coarse…
In this work, we consider the problem of bounding the values of a covariance function corresponding to a continuous-time stationary stochastic process or signal. Specifically, for two signals whose covariance functions agree on a finite…
Stochastic first-order methods are standard for training large-scale machine learning models. Random behavior may cause a particular run of an algorithm to result in a highly suboptimal objective value, whereas theoretical guarantees are…
We consider the problem of estimating the possibly non-convex cost of an agent by observing its interactions with a nonlinear, non-stationary and stochastic environment. For this inverse problem, we give a result that allows to estimate the…
We consider control of uncertain linear time-varying stochastic systems from the perspective of regret minimization. Specifically, we focus on the problem of designing a feedback controller that minimizes the loss relative to a clairvoyant…
We address the problem of learning an unknown smooth function and its derivatives from noisy pointwise evaluations under the supremum norm. While classical nonparametric regression provides a strong theoretical foundation, traditional…
In classic robust optimization, it is assumed that a set of possible parameter realizations, the uncertainty set, is modeled in a previous step and part of the input. As recent work has shown, finding the most suitable uncertainty set is in…