Parallel and distributed optimization methods for estimation and control in networks

System performance for networks composed of interconnected subsystems can be increased if the traditionally separated subsystems are jointly optimized. Recently, parallel and distributed optimization methods have emerged as a powerful tool for solving estimation and control problems in large-scale networked systems. In this paper we review and analyze the optimization-theoretic concepts of parallel and distributed methods for solving coupled optimization problems and demonstrate how several estimation and control problems related to complex networked systems can be formulated in these settings. The paper presents a systematic framework for exploiting the potential of the decomposition structures as a way to obtain different parallel algorithms, each with a different tradeoff among convergence speed, message passing amount and distributed computation architecture. Several specific applications from estimation and process control are included to demonstrate the power of the approach.Comment: 36 page

Distributed Subgradient Projection Algorithm over Directed Graphs

We propose a distributed algorithm, termed the Directed-Distributed Projected Subgradient (D-DPS), to solve a constrained optimization problem over a multi-agent network, where the goal of agents is to collectively minimize the sum of locally known convex functions. Each agent in the network owns only its local objective function, constrained to a commonly known convex set. We focus on the circumstance when communications between agents are described by a directed network. The D-DPS augments an additional variable for each agent, to overcome the asymmetry caused by the directed communication network. The convergence analysis shows that D-DPS converges at a rate of $O(\frac{\ln k}{\sqrt{k}})$, where k is the number of iterations

Distributed Subgradient Projection Algorithm over Directed Graphs: Alternate Proof

We propose Directed-Distributed Projected Subgradient (D-DPS) to solve a constrained optimization problem over a multi-agent network, where the goal of agents is to collectively minimize the sum of locally known convex functions. Each agent in the network owns only its local objective function, constrained to a commonly known convex set. We focus on the circumstance when communications between agents are described by a \emph{directed} network. The D-DPS combines surplus consensus to overcome the asymmetry caused by the directed communication network. The analysis shows the convergence rate to be $O(\frac{\ln k}{\sqrt{k}})$.Comment: Disclaimer: This manuscript provides an alternate approach to prove the results in \textit{C. Xi and U. A. Khan, Distributed Subgradient Projection Algorithm over Directed Graphs, in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control}. The changes, colored in blue, result into a tighter result in Theorem~1". arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1602.0065

Fenchel Dual Gradient Methods for Distributed Convex Optimization over Time-varying Networks

In the large collection of existing distributed algorithms for convex multi-agent optimization, only a handful of them provide convergence rate guarantees on agent networks with time-varying topologies, which, however, restrict the problem to be unconstrained. Motivated by this, we develop a family of distributed Fenchel dual gradient methods for solving constrained, strongly convex but not necessarily smooth multi-agent optimization problems over time-varying undirected networks. The proposed algorithms are constructed based on the application of weighted gradient methods to the Fenchel dual of the multi-agent optimization problem, and can be implemented in a fully decentralized fashion. We show that the proposed algorithms drive all the agents to both primal and dual optimality asymptotically under a minimal connectivity condition and at sublinear rates under a standard connectivity condition. Finally, the competent convergence performance of the distributed Fenchel dual gradient methods is demonstrated via simulations

Fast Convergence Rates of Distributed Subgradient Methods with Adaptive Quantization

We study distributed optimization problems over a network when the communication between the nodes is constrained, and so information that is exchanged between the nodes must be quantized. Recent advances using the distributed gradient algorithm with a quantization scheme at a fixed resolution have established convergence, but at rates significantly slower than when the communications are unquantized. In this paper, we introduce a novel quantization method, which we refer to as adaptive quantization, that allows us to match the convergence rates under perfect communications. Our approach adjusts the quantization scheme used by each node as the algorithm progresses: as we approach the solution, we become more certain about where the state variables are localized, and adapt the quantizer codebook accordingly. We bound the convergence rates of the proposed method as a function of the communication bandwidth, the underlying network topology, and structural properties of the constituent objective functions. In particular, we show that if the objective functions are convex or strongly convex, then using adaptive quantization does not affect the rate of convergence of the distributed subgradient methods when the communications are quantized, except for a constant that depends on the resolution of the quantizer. To the best of our knowledge, the rates achieved in this paper are better than any existing work in the literature for distributed gradient methods under finite communication bandwidths. We also provide numerical simulations that compare convergence properties of the distributed gradient methods with and without quantization for solving distributed regression problems for both quadratic and absolute loss functions.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1810.1156

Accelerated Distributed Dual Averaging over Evolving Networks of Growing Connectivity

We consider the problem of accelerating distributed optimization in multi-agent networks by sequentially adding edges. Specifically, we extend the distributed dual averaging (DDA) subgradient algorithm to evolving networks of growing connectivity and analyze the corresponding improvement in convergence rate. It is known that the convergence rate of DDA is influenced by the algebraic connectivity of the underlying network, where better connectivity leads to faster convergence. However, the impact of network topology design on the convergence rate of DDA has not been fully understood. In this paper, we begin by designing network topologies via edge selection and scheduling. For edge selection, we determine the best set of candidate edges that achieves the optimal tradeoff between the growth of network connectivity and the usage of network resources. The dynamics of network evolution is then incurred by edge scheduling. Further, we provide a tractable approach to analyze the improvement in the convergence rate of DDA induced by the growth of network connectivity. Our analysis reveals the connection between network topology design and the convergence rate of DDA, and provides quantitative evaluation of DDA acceleration for distributed optimization that is absent in the existing analysis. Lastly, numerical experiments show that DDA can be significantly accelerated using a sequence of well-designed networks, and our theoretical predictions are well matched to its empirical convergence behavior

A unitary distributed subgradient method for multi-agent optimization with different coupling sources

In this work, we first consider distributed convex constrained optimization problems where the objective function is encoded by multiple local and possibly nonsmooth objectives privately held by a group of agents, and propose a distributed subgradient method with double averaging (abbreviated as ${\rm DSA_2}$) that only requires peer-to-peer communication and local computation to solve the global problem. The algorithmic framework builds on dual methods and dynamic average consensus; the sequence of test points is formed by iteratively minimizing a local dual model of the overall objective where the coefficients, i.e., approximated subgradients of the objective, are supplied by the dynamic average consensus scheme. We theoretically show that ${\rm DSA_2}$ enjoys non-ergodic convergence properties, i.e., the local minimizing sequence itself is convergent, a distinct feature that cannot be found in existing results. Specifically, we establish a convergence rate of $O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{t}})$ in terms of objective function error. Then, extensions are made to tackle distributed optimization problems with coupled functional constraints by combining ${\rm DSA_2}$ and dual decomposition. This is made possible by Lagrangian relaxation that transforms the coupling in constraints of the primal problem into that in cost functions of the dual, thus allowing us to solve the dual problem via ${\rm DSA_2}$. Both the dual objective error and the quadratic penalty for the coupled constraint are proved to converge at a rate of $O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{t}})$, and the primal objective error asymptotically vanishes. Numerical experiments and comparisons are conducted to illustrate the advantage of the proposed algorithms and validate our theoretical findings.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Approximate Projection Methods for Decentralized Optimization with Functional Constraints

We consider distributed convex optimization problems that involve a separable objective function and nontrivial functional constraints, such as Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). We propose a decentralized and computationally inexpensive algorithm which is based on the concept of approximate projections. Our algorithm is one of the consensus based methods in that, at every iteration, each agent performs a consensus update of its decision variables followed by an optimization step of its local objective function and local constraints. Unlike other methods, the last step of our method is not an Euclidean projection onto the feasible set, but instead a subgradient step in the direction that minimizes the local constraint violation. We propose two different averaging schemes to mitigate the disagreements among the agents' local estimates. We show that the algorithms converge almost surely, i.e., every agent agrees on the same optimal solution, under the assumption that the objective functions and constraint functions are nondifferentiable and their subgradients are bounded. We provide simulation results on a decentralized optimal gossip averaging problem, which involves SDP constraints, to complement our theoretical results

Subgradient-Free Stochastic Optimization Algorithm for Non-smooth Convex Functions over Time-Varying Networks

In this paper we consider a distributed stochastic optimization problem without the gradient/subgradient information for the local objective functions, subject to local convex constraints. The objective functions may be non-smooth and observed with stochastic noises, and the network for the distributed design is time-varying. By adding the stochastic dithers into the local objective functions and constructing the randomized differences motivated by the Kiefer-Wolfowitz algorithm, we propose a distributed subgradient-free algorithm to find the global minimizer with local observations. Moreover, we prove that the consensus of estimates and global minimization can be achieved with probability one over the time-varying network, and then obtain the convergence rate of the mean average of estimates as well. Finally, we give a numerical example to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm

Graph Balancing for Distributed Subgradient Methods over Directed Graphs

We consider a multi agent optimization problem where a set of agents collectively solves a global optimization problem with the objective function given by the sum of locally known convex functions. We focus on the case when information exchange among agents takes place over a directed network and propose a distributed subgradient algorithm in which each agent performs local processing based on information obtained from his incoming neighbors. Our algorithm uses weight balancing to overcome the asymmetries caused by the directed communication network, i.e., agents scale their outgoing information with dynamically updated weights that converge to balancing weights of the graph. We show that both the objective function values and the consensus violation, at the ergodic average of the estimates generated by the algorithm, converge with rate $O(\frac{\log T}{\sqrt{T}})$, where $T$ is the number of iterations. A special case of our algorithm provides a new distributed method to compute average consensus over directed graphs