A Distributed Approach for the Optimal Power Flow Problem Based on ADMM and Sequential Convex Approximations

The optimal power flow (OPF) problem, which plays a central role in operating electrical networks is considered. The problem is nonconvex and is in fact NP hard. Therefore, designing efficient algorithms of practical relevance is crucial, though their global optimality is not guaranteed. Existing semi-definite programming relaxation based approaches are restricted to OPF problems where zero duality holds. In this paper, an efficient novel method to address the general nonconvex OPF problem is investigated. The proposed method is based on alternating direction method of multipliers combined with sequential convex approximations. The global OPF problem is decomposed into smaller problems associated to each bus of the network, the solutions of which are coordinated via a light communication protocol. Therefore, the proposed method is highly scalable. The convergence properties of the proposed algorithm are mathematically substantiated. Finally, the proposed algorithm is evaluated on a number of test examples, where the convergence properties of the proposed algorithm are numerically substantiated and the performance is compared with a global optimal method.Comment: 14 page

Optimization techniques for radio resource management in wireless communication networks

Abstract The application of optimization techniques for resource management in wireless communication networks is considered in this thesis. It is understood that a wide variety of resource management problems of recent interest, including power/rate control, link scheduling, cross-layer control, network utility maximization, beamformer design of multiple-input multiple-output networks, and many others are directly or indirectly reliant on the general weighted sum-rate maximization (WSRMax) problem. Thus, in this dissertation a greater emphasis is placed on the WSRMax problem, which is known to be NP-hard. A general method, based on the branch and bound technique, is developed, which solves globally the nonconvex WSRMax problem with an optimality certificate. Efficient analytic bounding techniques are derived as well. More broadly, the proposed method is not restricted to WSRMax. It can also be used to maximize any system performance metric, which is Lipschitz continuous and increasing on signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio. The method can be used to find the optimum performance of any network design method, which relies on WSRMax, and therefore it is also useful for evaluating the performance loss encountered by any heuristic algorithm. The considered link-interference model is general enough to accommodate a wide range of network topologies with various node capabilities, such as singlepacket transmission, multipacket transmission, simultaneous transmission and reception, and many others. Since global methods become slow in large-scale problems, fast local optimization methods for the WSRMax problem are also developed. First, a general multicommodity, multichannel wireless multihop network where all receivers perform singleuser detection is considered. Algorithms based on homotopy methods and complementary geometric programming are developed for WSRMax. They are able to exploit efficiently the available multichannel diversity. The proposed algorithm, based on homotopy methods, handles efficiently the self interference problem that arises when a node transmits and receives simultaneously in the same frequency band. This is very important, since the use of supplementary combinatorial constraints to prevent simultaneous transmissions and receptions of any node is circumvented. In addition, the algorithm together with the considered interference model, provide a mechanism for evaluating the gains when the network nodes employ self interference cancelation techniques with different degrees of accuracy. Next, a similar multicommodity wireless multihop network is considered, but all receivers perform multiuser detection. Solutions for the WSRMax problem are obtained by imposing additional constraints, such as that only one node can transmit to others at a time or that only one node can receive from others at a time. The WSRMax problem of downlink OFDMA systems is also considered. A fast algorithm based on primal decomposition techniques is developed to jointly optimize the multiuser subcarrier assignment and power allocation to maximize the weighted sum-rate (WSR). Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm converges faster than Lagrange relaxation based methods. Finally, a distributed algorithm for WSRMax is derived in multiple-input single-output multicell downlink systems. The proposed method is based on classical primal decomposition methods and subgradient methods. It does not rely on zero forcing beamforming or high signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio approximation like many other distributed variants. The algorithm essentially involves coordinating many local subproblems (one for each base station) to resolve the inter-cell interference such that the WSR is maximized. The numerical results show that significant gains can be achieved by only a small amount of message passing between the coordinating base stations, though the global optimality of the solution cannot be guaranteed.Tiivistelmä Tässä työssä tutkitaan optimointimenetelmien käyttöä resurssienhallintaan langattomissa tiedonsiirtoverkoissa. Monet ajankohtaiset resurssienhallintaongelmat, kuten esimerkiksi tehonsäätö, datanopeuden säätö, radiolinkkien ajastus, protokollakerrosten välinen optimointi, verkon hyötyfunktion maksimointi ja keilanmuodostus moniantenniverkoissa, liittyvät joko suoraan tai epäsuorasti painotetun summadatanopeuden maksimointiongelmaan (weighted sum-rate maximization, WSRMax). Tästä syystä tämä työ keskittyy erityisesti WSRMax-ongelmaan, joka on tunnetusti NP-kova. Työssä kehitetään yleinen branch and bound -tekniikkaan perustuva menetelmä, joka ratkaisee epäkonveksin WSRMax-ongelman globaalisti ja tuottaa todistuksen ratkaisun optimaalisuudesta. Työssä johdetaan myös tehokkaita analyyttisiä suorituskykyrajojen laskentatekniikoita. Ehdotetun menetelmän käyttö ei rajoitu vain WSRMax-ongelmaan, vaan sitä voidaan soveltaa minkä tahansa suorituskykymetriikan maksimointiin, kunhan se on Lipschitz-jatkuva ja kasvava signaali-häiriö-plus-kohinasuhteen funktiona. Menetelmää voidaan käyttää minkä tahansa WSRMax-ongelmaan perustuvan verkkosuunnittelumenetelmän optimaalisen suorituskyvyn määrittämiseen, ja siksi sitä voidaan hyödyntää myös minkä tahansa heuristisen algoritmin aiheuttaman suorituskykytappion arvioimiseen. Tutkittava linkki-häiriömalli on riittävän yleinen monien erilaisten verkkotopologioiden ja verkkosolmujen kyvykkyyksien mallintamiseen, kuten esimerkiksi yhden tai useamman datapaketin siirtoon sekä yhtäaikaiseen lähetykseen ja vastaanottoon. Koska globaalit menetelmät ovat hitaita suurien ongelmien ratkaisussa, työssä kehitetään WSRMax-ongelmalle myös nopeita paikallisia optimointimenetelmiä. Ensiksi käsitellään yleistä useaa eri yhteyspalvelua tukevaa monikanavaista langatonta monihyppyverkkoa, jossa kaikki vastaanottimet suorittavat yhden käyttäjän ilmaisun, ja kehitetään algoritmeja, joiden perustana ovat homotopiamenetelmät ja komplementaarinen geometrinen optimointi. Ne hyödyntävät tehokkaasti saatavilla olevan monikanavadiversiteetin. Esitetty homotopiamenetelmiin perustuva algoritmi käsittelee tehokkaasti itsehäiriöongelman, joka syntyy, kun laite lähettää ja vastaanottaa samanaikaisesti samalla taajuuskaistalla. Tämä on tärkeää, koska näin voidaan välttää lisäehtojen käyttö yhtäaikaisen lähetyksen ja vastaanoton estämiseksi. Lisäksi algoritmi yhdessä tutkittavan häiriömallin kanssa auttaa arvioimaan, paljonko etua saadaan, kun laitteet käyttävät itsehäiriön poistomenetelmiä erilaisilla tarkkuuksilla. Seuraavaksi tutkitaan vastaavaa langatonta monihyppyverkkoa, jossa kaikki vastaanottimet suorittavat monen käyttäjän ilmaisun. Ratkaisuja WSRMax-ongelmalle saadaan asettamalla lisäehtoja, kuten että vain yksi lähetin kerrallaan voi lähettää tai että vain yksi vastaanotin kerrallaan voi vastaanottaa. Edelleen tutkitaan WSRMax-ongelmaa laskevalla siirtotiellä OFDMA-järjestelmässä, ja johdetaan primaalihajotelmaan perustuva nopea algoritmi, joka yhteisoptimoi monen käyttäjän alikantoaalto- ja tehoallokaation maksimoiden painotetun summadatanopeuden. Numeeriset tulokset osoittavat, että esitetty algoritmi suppenee nopeammin kuin Lagrangen relaksaatioon perustuvat menetelmät. Lopuksi johdetaan hajautettu algoritmi WSRMax-ongelmalle monisoluisissa moniantennilähetystä käyttävissä järjestelmissä laskevaa siirtotietä varten. Esitetty menetelmä perustuu klassisiin primaalihajotelma- ja aligradienttimenetelmiin. Se ei turvaudu nollaanpakotus-keilanmuodostukseen tai korkean signaali-häiriö-plus-kohinasuhteen approksimaatioon, kuten monet muut hajautetut muunnelmat. Algoritmi koordinoi monta paikallista aliongelmaa (yhden kutakin tukiasemaa kohti) ratkaistakseen solujen välisen häiriön siten, että WSR maksimoituu. Numeeriset tulokset osoittavat, että merkittävää etua saadaan jo vähäisellä yhdessä toimivien tukiasemien välisellä viestinvaihdolla, vaikka globaalisti optimaalista ratkaisua ei voidakaan taata

Optimizing Client Association for Load Balancing and Fairness in Millimeter-Wave Wireless Networks

Millimeter-wave communications in the 60-GHz band are considered one of the key technologies for enabling multigigabit wireless access. However, the special characteristics of such a band pose major obstacles to the optimal utilization of the wireless resources, where the problem of efficient client association to access points (APs) is of vital importance. In this paper, the client association in 60-GHz wireless access networks is investigated. The AP utilization and the quality of the rapidly vanishing communication links are the control parameters. Because of the tricky non-convex and combinatorial nature of the client association optimization problem, a novel solution method is developed to guarantee balanced and fair resource allocation. A new distributed, lightweight, and easy-to-implement association algorithm, based on Lagrangian duality theory and subgradient methods, is proposed. It is shown that the algorithm is asymptotically optimal, that is, the relative duality gap diminishes to zero as the number of clients increases

Critical points to determine persistence homology

Abstract Computation of simplicial complexes of a large point cloud often relies on extracting a sample, to reduce the associated computational burden. The sampling of the point cloud should minimally mutilate the features of the underlying object to enable effective “feature extraction” that lies at the center of modern data analysis techniques, e.g., machine learning. The study considers sampling critical points of a Morse function associated with a point cloud, to approximate the Vietoris-Rips complex and to compute persistence homology. The effectiveness of the approach is compared with the farthest point sampling (FPS), in the context of two classification problems. The empirical results suggest that sampling critical points of the Morse function can be more effective than FPS when determining the persistence homology for the cases where the critical points play a decisive role

On the primal feasibility in dual decomposition methods under additive and bounded errors

Abstract With the unprecedented growth of signal processing and machine learning application domains, there has been a tremendous expansion of interest in distributed optimization methods to cope with the underlying large-scale problems. Nonetheless, inevitable system-specific challenges such as limited computational power, limited communication, latency requirements, measurement errors, and noises in wireless channels impose restrictions on the exactness of the underlying algorithms. Such restrictions have appealed to the exploration of algorithms' convergence behaviors under inexact settings. Despite the extensive research conducted in the area, it seems that the analysis of convergences of dual decomposition methods concerning primal optimality violations, together with dual optimality violations is less investigated. Here, we provide a systematic exposition of the convergence of feasible points in dual decomposition methods under inexact settings, for an important class of global consensus optimization problems. Convergences and the rate of convergences of the algorithms are mathematically substantiated, not only from a dual-domain standpoint but also from a primal-domain standpoint. Analytical results show that the algorithms converge to a neighborhood of optimality, the size of which depends on the level of underlying distortions