Combining stochastic programming and optimal control to solve multistage stochastic optimization problems

Abstract

In this contribution we propose an approach to solve a multistage stochastic programming problem which allows us to obtain a time and nodal decomposition of the original problem. This double decomposition is achieved applying a discrete time optimal control formulation to the original stochastic programming problem in arborescent form. Combining the arborescent formulation of the problem with the point of view of the optimal control theory naturally gives as a first result the time decomposability of the optimality conditions, which can be organized according to the terminology and structure of a discrete time optimal control problem into the systems of equation for the state and adjoint variables dynamics and the optimality conditions for the generalized Hamiltonian. Moreover these conditions, due to the arborescent formulation of the stochastic programming problem, further decompose with respect to the nodes in the event tree. The optimal solution is obtained by solving small decomposed subproblems and using a mean valued fixed-point iterative scheme to combine them. To enhance the convergence we suggest an optimization step where the weights are chosen in an optimal way at each iteration.Stochastic programming, discrete time control problem, decomposition methods, iterative scheme