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Project

Operator Splitting Techniques and Their Application to Embedded Optimization Problems

Efficient first-order algorithms for large-scale  distributed optimization is the main subject of investigation in this thesis. The algorithms considered cover a wide array of applications in machine learning, signal processing and control. 

In recent years, a large number of algorithms have been introduced  that rely on (possibly a reformulation of) one of the  classical splitting algorithms, specifically forward-backward, Douglas-Rachford and forward-backward-forward splittings. In this thesis a new three term splitting technique is developed that recovers forward-backward and Douglas-Rachford splittings as special cases. In the context of structured optimization, this splitting is leveraged to develop a framework for a large class of primal-dual algorithms providing a unified convergence analysis for many seemingly unrelated algorithms. Moreover, linear convergence is  established for all such algorithms  under mild regularity conditions for the cost functions.

As another notable contribution we propose a randomized block-coordinate primal-dual algorithm that leads to a fully distributed asynchronous algorithm in a multi-agent model. Moreover, when specializing to multi-agent structured optimization over graphs, novel algorithms are proposed. In addition, it is shown that in a multi-agent model bounded communication delays are tolerated by primal-dual algorithms provided that certain strong convexity assumptions hold.

  In the final chapter we depart from convex analysis and consider a fully nonconvex block-coordinate proximal gradient algorithm and show that it leads to nonconvex incremental aggregated algorithms for regularized finite sum and sharing problems with very general sampling strategies.  

Date:17 Oct 2016 →  30 Sep 2021
Keywords:Numerical Analysis, Convex Optimization
Disciplines:Control systems, robotics and automation, Design theories and methods, Mechatronics and robotics, Computer theory, Modelling, Biological system engineering, Signal processing, Applied mathematics in specific fields, Computer architecture and networks, Distributed computing, Information sciences, Information systems, Programming languages, Scientific computing, Theoretical computer science, Visual computing, Other information and computing sciences
Project type:PhD project