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A new stochastic primal--dual algorithm for solving a composite optimization problem is proposed. It is assumed that all the functions/operators that enter the optimization problem are given as statistical expectations. These expectations…
We consider the problem of analyzing the probabilistic performance of first-order methods when solving convex optimization problems drawn from an unknown distribution only accessible through samples. By combining performance estimation…
We use Lyapunov-like functions and convex optimization to propagate uncertainty in the initial condition of nonlinear systems governed by ordinary differential equations. We consider the full nonlinear dynamics without approximation,…
Optimal control deals with optimization problems in which variables steer a dynamical system, and its outcome contributes to the objective function. Two classical approaches to solving these problems are Dynamic Programming and the…
We propose an unconstrained optimization method based on the well-known primal-dual hybrid gradient (PDHG) algorithm. We first formulate the optimality condition of the unconstrained optimization problem as a saddle point problem. We then…
Min-max optimization problems (i.e., min-max games) have been attracting a great deal of attention because of their applicability to a wide range of machine learning problems. Although significant progress has been made recently, the…
We address the problem of computing a control for a time-dependent nonlinear system to reach a target set in a minimal time. To solve this minimal time control problem, we introduce a hierarchy of linear semi-infinite programs, the values…
We study an optimal control problem under uncertainty, where the target function is the solution of an elliptic partial differential equation with random coefficients, steered by a control function. The robust formulation of the…
This paper first proposes an N-block PCPM algorithm to solve N-block convex optimization problems with both linear and nonlinear constraints, with global convergence established. A linear convergence rate under the strong second-order…
We reconsider the variational integration of optimal control problems for mechanical systems based on a direct discretization of the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle. This approach yields discrete dynamical constraints which by construction…
The main challenge for adaptive regulation of linear-quadratic systems is the trade-off between identification and control. An adaptive policy needs to address both the estimation of unknown dynamics parameters (exploration), as well as the…
The article poses a general model for optimal control subject to information constraints, motivated in part by recent work of Sims and others on information-constrained decision-making by economic agents. In the average-cost optimal control…
This paper studies the distributed optimization problem with possibly nonidentical local constraints, where its global objective function is composed of $N$ convex functions. The aim is to solve the considered optimization problem in a…
Quadratic programming is a workhorse of modern nonlinear optimization, control, and data science. Although regularized methods offer convergence guarantees under minimal assumptions on the problem data, they can exhibit the slow…
We study a family of optimal control problems in which one aims at minimizing a cost that mixes a quadratic control penalization and the variance of the system, both for finitely many agents and for the mean-field dynamics as their number…
$ \newcommand{\cclass}[1]{{\textsf{#1}}} $The classical Grothendieck inequality has applications to the design of approximation algorithms for $\cclass{NP}$-hard optimization problems. We show that an algorithmic interpretation may also be…
Standard stochastic control methods assume that the probability distribution of uncertain variables is available. Unfortunately, in practice, obtaining accurate distribution information is a challenging task. To resolve this issue, we…
We develop a novel framework to study smooth and strongly convex optimization algorithms, both deterministic and stochastic. Focusing on quadratic functions we are able to examine optimization algorithms as a recursive application of linear…
We consider a class of stochastic optimal control problems with partial observation, and study their approximation by discrete-time control problems. We establish a convergence result by using weak convergence technique of Kushner and…
Many of the new developments in machine learning are connected with gradient-based optimization methods. Recently, these methods have been studied using a variational perspective. This has opened up the possibility of introducing…