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Consensus-based optimization (CBO) is a powerful and versatile zero-order multi-particle method designed to provably solve high-dimensional global optimization problems, including those that are genuinely nonconvex or nonsmooth. The method…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-13 Massimo Fornasier , Hui Huang , Jona Klemenc , Greta Malaspina

In this work we are interested in the construction of numerical methods for high dimensional constrained nonlinear optimization problems by particle-based gradient-free techniques. A consensus-based optimization (CBO) approach combined with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-23 Giacomo Borghi , Michael Herty , Lorenzo Pareschi

We propose a variant of consensus-based optimization (CBO) algorithms, controlled-CBO, which introduces a feedback control term to improve convergence towards global minimizers of non-convex functions in multiple dimensions. The feedback…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-29 Yuyang Huang , Michael Herty , Dante Kalise , Nikolas Kantas

We study the finite-agent behavior of Consensus-Based Optimization (CBO), a recent metaheuristic for the global minimization of a function, that combines drift toward a consensus estimate with stochastic exploration. While previous analyses…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-23 Simone Göttlich , Jacob Heieck , Andreas Neuenkirch

In this work we study the mean-field description of Consensus-Based Optimization (CBO), a derivative-free particle optimization method. Such a description is provided by a non-local SDE of McKean-Vlasov type, whose fields lack of global…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-30 Alessandro Baldi

Zero-order optimization has recently received significant attention for designing optimal trajectories and policies for robotic systems. However, most existing methods (e.g., MPPI, CEM, and CMA-ES) are local in nature, as they rely on…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-09 Xudong Sun , Armand Jordana , Massimo Fornasier , Jalal Etesami , Majid Khadiv

We study the machine learning task for models with operators mapping between the Wasserstein space of probability measures and a space of functions, like e.g. in mean-field games/control problems. Two classes of neural networks, based on…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-19 Huyên Pham , Xavier Warin

In this paper, we study a consensus-based optimization method for nonconvex bi-level optimization, where the objective is to minimize an upper-level function over the set of global minimizers of a lower-level problem. The proposed approach…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-20 Yutong Chao , Xudong Sun , Konstantin Riedl , Majid Khadiv , Jalal Etesami

Consensus-based optimization (CBO) is a multi-agent metaheuristic derivative-free optimization algorithm that has proven to be capable of globally minimizing nonconvex nonsmooth functions across a diverse range of applications while being…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-12 Sabrina Bonandin , Konstantin Riedl , Sara Veneruso

We analyze an algorithm to numerically solve the mean-field optimal control problems by approximating the optimal feedback controls using neural networks with problem specific architectures. We approximate the model by an $N$-particle…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-25 H. Mete Soner , Josef Teichmann , Qinxin Yan

Bi-level optimization problems, where one wishes to find the global minimizer of an upper-level objective function over the globally optimal solution set of a lower-level objective, arise in a variety of scenarios throughout science and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-13 Nicolás García Trillos , Sixu Li , Konstantin Riedl , Yuhua Zhu

We introduce contextual stochastic bilevel optimization (CSBO) -- a stochastic bilevel optimization framework with the lower-level problem minimizing an expectation conditioned on some contextual information and the upper-level decision…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-10-31 Yifan Hu , Jie Wang , Yao Xie , Andreas Krause , Daniel Kuhn

In this paper, we provide a novel analytical perspective on the theoretical understanding of gradient-based learning algorithms by interpreting consensus-based optimization (CBO), a recently proposed multi-particle derivative-free…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Konstantin Riedl , Timo Klock , Carina Geldhauser , Massimo Fornasier

In this paper, we propose consensus-based optimization for saddle point problems (CBO-SP), a novel multi-particle metaheuristic derivative-free optimization method capable of provably finding global Nash equilibria. Following the idea of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-05 Hui Huang , Jinniao Qiu , Konstantin Riedl

We propose Discrete Consensus-Based Optimization (DCBO), a fully discrete version of the Consensus-Based Optimization (CBO) framework. DCBO is a multi-agent method for the global optimization of possibly non-convex and non-differentiable…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-17 Junhyeok Byeon , Seung-Yeal Ha , Joong-Ho Won

Objective functions in large-scale machine-learning and artificial intelligence applications often live in high dimensions with strong non-convexity and massive local minima. First-order methods, such as the stochastic gradient method and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-10 Jingrun Chen , Shi Jin , Liyao Lyu

The training dynamics of two-layer neural networks with batch normalization (BN) is studied. It is written as the training dynamics of a neural network without BN on a Riemannian manifold. Therefore, we identify BN's effect of changing the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-19 Chao Ma , Lexing Ying

In this paper, we propose a predictor-corrector type Consensus Based Optimization (CBO) algorithm on a convex feasible set. Our proposed algorithm generalizes the CBO algorithm in [11] to tackle a constrained optimization problem for the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-10-14 Hyeong-Ohk Bae , Seung-Yeal Ha , Myeongju Kang , Hyuncheul Lim , Chanho Min , Jane Yoo

In this work we propose MirrorCBO, a consensus-based optimization (CBO) method which generalizes standard CBO in the same way that mirror descent generalizes gradient descent. For this we apply the CBO methodology to a swarm of dual…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-17 Leon Bungert , Franca Hoffmann , Dohyeon Kim , Tim Roith

Consensus-based optimization (CBO) has established itself as an efficient gradient-free optimization scheme, with attractive mathematical properties, such as mean-field convergence results for non-convex loss functions. In this work, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-01 Tim Roith , Leon Bungert , Philipp Wacker