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Chance constrained programming (CCP) refers to a type of optimization problem with uncertain constraints that are satisfied with at least a prescribed probability level. In this work, we study the sample average approximation (SAA) of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-30 Peng Wang , Rujun Jiang , Qingyuan Kong , Laura Balzano

While recent developments in autonomous vehicle (AV) technology highlight substantial progress, we lack tools for rigorous and scalable testing. Real-world testing, the $\textit{de facto}$ evaluation environment, places the public in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-01-15 Matthew O'Kelly , Aman Sinha , Hongseok Namkoong , John Duchi , Russ Tedrake

Scenario optimization and conformal prediction share a common goal, that is, turning finite samples into safety margins. Yet, different terminology often obscures the connection between their respective guarantees. This paper revisits that…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-03-23 Giuseppe C. Calafiore

We propose an adaptive importance sampling scheme for the simulation of rare events when the underlying dynamics is given by a diffusion. The scheme is based on a Gibbs variational principle that is used to determine the optimal (i.e.…

Probability · Mathematics 2019-07-24 Carsten Hartmann , Omar Kebiri , Lara Neureither , Lorenz Richter

This paper investigates probabilistic robustness of nonconvex-nonconcave minimax problems via the scenario approach. Specifically, under convex strategy sets for all players, inspired by recent advances in scenario optimization, we first…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-14 Huan Peng , Guanpu Chen , Karl Henrik Johansson

Rare event simulation and rare event probability estimation are important tasks within the analysis of systems subject to uncertainty and randomness. Simultaneously, accurately estimating rare event probabilities is an inherently difficult…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-07-18 Max Ehre , Iason Papaioannou , Daniel Straub

Reachability analysis is an important method in providing safety guarantees for systems with unknown or uncertain dynamics. Due to the computational intractability of exact reachability analysis for general nonlinear, high-dimensional…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-09-12 Elizabeth Dietrich , Rosalyn Devonport , Stephen Tu , Murat Arcak

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) require extensive testing in simulation, but test case generation for driving scenarios is laborious. The desired scenarios are often out-of-distribution and have precise requirements on interactions with the AV…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Frieda Rong , Chris Zhang , Kelvin Wong , Raquel Urtasun

The probability of rare and extreme events is an important quantity for design purposes. However, computing the probability of rare events can be expensive because only a few events, if any, can be observed. To this end, it is necessary to…

Computational Physics · Physics 2020-01-08 Malik Hassanaly , Venkat Raman

The cross-entropy method (CE) developed by R. Rubinstein is an elegant practical principle for simulating rare events. The method approximates the probability of the rare event by means of a family of probabilistic models. The method has…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2007-06-13 Frederic Dambreville

In recent years, the increasing interest in Stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) schemes has highlighted the limitation arising from their inherent computational demand, which has restricted their applicability to slow-dynamics and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-05-22 Martina Mammarella , Teodoro Alamo , Fabrizio Dabbene , Matthias Lorenzen

We propose a sampling-based trajectory optimization methodology for constrained problems. We extend recent works on stochastic search to deal with box control constraints,as well as nonlinear state constraints for discrete dynamical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-13 George I. Boutselis , Ziyi Wang , Evangelos A. Theodorou

Safety is essential for reinforcement learning (RL) applied in real-world situations. Chance constraints are suitable to represent the safety requirements in stochastic systems. Previous chance-constrained RL methods usually have a low…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-17 Baiyu Peng , Yao Mu , Yang Guan , Shengbo Eben Li , Yuming Yin , Jianyu Chen

Chance constrained optimization problems allow to model problems where constraints involving stochastic components should only be violated with a small probability. Evolutionary algorithms have been applied to this scenario and shown to…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2024-08-23 Frank Neumann , Carsten Witt

By their very nature, rare event probabilities are expensive to compute; they are also delicate to estimate as their value strongly depends on distributional assumptions on the model parameters. Hence, understanding the sensitivity of the…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2021-10-28 Michael Merritt , Alen Alexanderian , Pierre Gremaud

Stochastic constraints, which incorporate both deterministic parameters and random variables, extend classical deterministic constraints by explicitly accounting for uncertainty. These constraints are increasingly prevalent in data science,…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Xiakun Li , Hao Wu , Bican Xia , Tengshun Yang , Naijun Zhan

Evaluating rare but high-stakes events is one of the main challenges in obtaining reliable reinforcement learning policies, especially in large or infinite state/action spaces where limited scalability dictates a prohibitively large number…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-04 Mengdi Xu , Peide Huang , Fengpei Li , Jiacheng Zhu , Xuewei Qi , Kentaro Oguchi , Zhiyuan Huang , Henry Lam , Ding Zhao

A common problem that affects simulations of complex systems within the computational physics and chemistry communities is the so-called sampling problem or rare event problem where proper sampling of energy landscapes is impeded by the…

Computational Physics · Physics 2023-03-06 Benjamin Pampel , Simon Holbach , Lisa Hartung , Omar Valsson

Generating safety-critical scenarios is essential for testing and verifying the safety of autonomous vehicles. Traditional optimization techniques suffer from the curse of dimensionality and limit the search space to fixed parameter spaces.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-08 Haolan Liu , Liangjun Zhang , Siva Kumar Sastry Hari , Jishen Zhao

Data-driven decision-making is performed by solving a parameterized optimization problem, and the optimal decision is given by an optimal solution for unknown true parameters. We often need a solution that satisfies true constraints even…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-03-03 Akihiro Yabe , Takanori Maehara