Stable Nonlinear Identification From Noisy Repeated Experiments via Convex Optimization

This paper introduces new techniques for using convex optimization to fit input-output data to a class of stable nonlinear dynamical models. We present an algorithm that guarantees consistent estimates of models in this class when a small set of repeated experiments with suitably independent measurement noise is available. Stability of the estimated models is guaranteed without any assumptions on the input-output data. We first present a convex optimization scheme for identifying stable state-space models from empirical moments. Next, we provide a method for using repeated experiments to remove the effect of noise on these moment and model estimates. The technique is demonstrated on a simple simulated example

Convex Identifcation of Stable Dynamical Systems

This thesis concerns the scalable application of convex optimization to data-driven modeling of dynamical systems, termed system identi cation in the control community. Two problems commonly arising in system identi cation are model instability (e.g. unreliability of long-term, open-loop predictions), and nonconvexity of quality-of- t criteria, such as simulation error (a.k.a. output error). To address these problems, this thesis presents convex parametrizations of stable dynamical systems, convex quality-of- t criteria, and e cient algorithms to optimize the latter over the former. In particular, this thesis makes extensive use of Lagrangian relaxation, a technique for generating convex approximations to nonconvex optimization problems. Recently, Lagrangian relaxation has been used to approximate simulation error and guarantee nonlinear model stability via semide nite programming (SDP), however, the resulting SDPs have large dimension, limiting their practical utility. The rst contribution of this thesis is a custom interior point algorithm that exploits structure in the problem to signi cantly reduce computational complexity. The new algorithm enables empirical comparisons to established methods including Nonlinear ARX, in which superior generalization to new data is demonstrated. Equipped with this algorithmic machinery, the second contribution of this thesis is the incorporation of model stability constraints into the maximum likelihood framework. Speci - cally, Lagrangian relaxation is combined with the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to derive tight bounds on the likelihood function, that can be optimized over a convex parametrization of all stable linear dynamical systems. Two di erent formulations are presented, one of which gives higher delity bounds when disturbances (a.k.a. process noise) dominate measurement noise, and vice versa. Finally, identi cation of positive systems is considered. Such systems enjoy substantially simpler stability and performance analysis compared to the general linear time-invariant iv Abstract (LTI) case, and appear frequently in applications where physical constraints imply nonnegativity of the quantities of interest. Lagrangian relaxation is used to derive new convex parametrizations of stable positive systems and quality-of- t criteria, and substantial improvements in accuracy of the identi ed models, compared to existing approaches based on weighted equation error, are demonstrated. Furthermore, the convex parametrizations of stable systems based on linear Lyapunov functions are shown to be amenable to distributed optimization, which is useful for identi cation of large-scale networked dynamical systems