In many nonlinear control problems, the plant can be accurately described by a linear model whose operating point depends on some measurable variables, called scheduling signals. When such a linear parameter-varying (LPV) model of the open-loop plant needs to be derived from a set of data, several issues arise in terms of parameterization, estimation, and validation of the model before designing the controller. Moreover, the way modeling errors affect the closed-loop performance is still largely unknown in the LPV context. In this paper, a direct data-driven control method is proposed to design LPV controllers directly from data without deriving a model of the plant. The main idea of the approach is to use a hierarchical control architecture, where the inner controller is designed to match a simple and a-priori specified closed-loop behavior. Then, an outer model predictive controller is synthesized to handle input/output constraints and to enhance the performance of the inner loop. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by means of a simulation and an experimental example. Practical implementation issues are also discussed.
In this study, we propose a varying terminal time structure for the optimal control problem under state constraints, in which the terminal time follows the varying of the control via the constrained condition. Focusing on this new optimal control problem, we investigate a novel stochastic maximum principle, which differs from the traditional optimal control problem under state constraints. The optimal pair of the optimal control model can be verified via this new stochastic maximum principle.
This paper proposes a hierarchical decentralized reference governor for constrained cascade systems. The reference governor (RG) approach is reformulated in terms of receding horizon strategy such that a locally receding horizon optimization is obtained for each subsystem with a pre-established prediction horizon. The algorithm guarantees that not only the nominal overall closed-loop system without any constraint is recoverable but also the state and control constraints are satisfied in transient conditions. Also, considering unfeasible reference signals, the output of any subsystem goes local…
We consider cooperative multi-agent consensus optimization problems over both static and time-varying communication networks, where only local communications are allowed. The objective is to minimize the sum of agent-specific possibly non-smooth composite convex functions over agent-specific private conic constraint sets; hence, the optimal consensus decision should lie in the intersection of these private sets. Assuming the sum function is strongly convex, we provide convergence rates in suboptimality, infeasibility and consensus violation; examine the effect of underlying network topology on…
This paper develops online algorithms to track solutions of time-varying constrained optimization problems. Particularly, resembling workhorse Kalman filtering-based approaches for dynamical systems, the proposed methods involve prediction-correction steps to provably track the trajectory of the optimal solutions of time-varying convex problems. The merits of existing prediction-correction methods have been shown for unconstrained problems and for setups where computing the inverse of the Hessian of the cost function is computationally affordable. This paper addresses the limitations of existi…
Devising efficient algorithms to solve continuously-varying strongly convex optimization programs is key in many applications, from control systems to signal processing and machine learning. In this context, solving means to find and track the optimizer trajectory of the continuously-varying convex optimization program. Recently, a novel prediction-correction methodology has been put forward to set up iterative algorithms that sample the continuously-varying optimization program at discrete time steps and perform a limited amount of computations to correct their approximate optimizer with the …
In this paper, we consider a distributed constrained optimization problem with delayed subgradient information over the time-varying communication network, where each agent can only communicate with its neighbors and the communication channel has a limited data rate. We propose an adaptive quantization method to address this problem. A mirror descent algorithm with delayed subgradient information is established based on the theory of Bregman divergence. With non-Euclidean Bregman projection-based scheme, the proposed method essentially generalizes many previous classical Euclidean projection-b…
In this paper, we consider online convex optimization (OCO) with time-varying loss and constraint functions. Specifically, the decision maker chooses sequential decisions based only on past information, meantime the loss and constraint functions are revealed over time. We first develop a class of model-based augmented Lagrangian methods (MALM) for time-varying functional constrained OCO (without feedback delay). Under standard assumptions, we establish sublinear regret and sublinear constraint violation of MALM. Furthermore, we extend MALM to deal with time-varying functional constrained OCO w…
We investigate a distributed optimization problem over a cooperative multi-agent time-varying network, where each agent has its own decision variables that should be set so as to minimize its individual objective subject to local constraints and global coupling constraints. Based on push-sum protocol and dual decomposition, we design a distributed regularized dual gradient algorithm to solve this problem, in which the algorithm is implemented in time-varying directed graphs only requiring the column stochasticity of communication matrices. By augmenting the corresponding Lagrangian function wi…
In this paper, we study multi-agent network games subject to affine time-varying coupling constraints and a time-varying communication network. We focus on the class of games adopting proximal dynamics and study their convergence to a persistent equilibrium. The assumptions considered to solve the problem are discussed and motivated. We develop an iterative equilibrium seeking algorithm, using only local information, that converges to a special class of game equilibria. Its derivation is motivated by several examples, showing that the original game dynamics fail to converge. Finally, we apply …
This paper is concerned with a formation shaping problem for point agents in a two-dimensional space, where control avoids the possibility of reflection ambiguities. One solution for this type of problems was given first for three or four agents by considering a potential function which consists of both the distance error and the signed area terms. Then, by exploiting a hierarchical control strategy with such potential functions, the method was extended to any number of agents recently. However, a specific gain on the signed area term must be employed there, and it does not guarantee the globa…
This paper considers a convex optimization problem with cost and constraints that evolve over time. The function to be minimized is strongly convex and possibly non-differentiable, and variables are coupled through linear constraints. In this setting, the paper proposes an online algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), to track the optimal solution trajectory of the time-varying problem; in particular, the proposed algorithm consists of a primal proximal gradient descent step and an appropriately perturbed dual ascent step. The paper derives tracking results,…
This paper considers nonconvex distributed constrained optimization over networks, modeled as directed (possibly time-varying) graphs. We introduce the first algorithmic framework for the minimization of the sum of a smooth nonconvex (nonseparable) function--the agent's sum-utility--plus a Difference-of-Convex (DC) function (with nonsmooth convex part). This general formulation arises in many applications, from statistical machine learning to engineering. The proposed distributed method combines successive convex approximation techniques with a judiciously designed perturbed push-sum consensus…
This paper is concerned with distributed stochastic multi-agent constrained optimization problem over time-varying network with a class of communication noise. This paper considers the problem in composite optimization setting which is more general in the literature of noisy network optimization. It is noteworthy that the mainstream existing methods for noisy network optimization are Euclidean projection based. Based on Bregman projection-based mirror descent scheme, we present a non-Euclidean method and investigate their convergence behavior. This method is the distributed stochastic composit…
Time-varying non-convex continuous-valued non-linear constrained optimization is a fundamental problem. We study conditions wherein a momentum-like regularising term allow for the tracking of local optima by considering an ordinary differential equation (ODE). We then derive an efficient algorithm based on a predictor-corrector method, to track the ODE solution.
