Improving efficiency and scalability of sum of squares optimization: Recent advances and limitations

Amir Ali Ahmadi, Georgina Hall, Antonis Papachristodoulou, James Saunderson, Yang Zheng

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

It is well-known that any sum of squares (SOS) program can be cast as a semidefinite program (SDP) of a particular structure and that therein lies the computational bottleneck for SOS programs, as the SDPs generated by this procedure are large and costly to solve when the polynomials involved in the SOS programs have a large number of variables and degree. In this paper, we review SOS optimization techniques and present two new methods for improving their computational efficiency. The first method leverages the sparsity of the underlying SDP to obtain computational speed-ups. Further improvements can be obtained if the coefficients of the polynomials that describe the problem have a particular sparsity pattern, called chordal sparsity. The second method bypasses semidefinite programming altogether and relies instead on solving a sequence of more tractable convex programs, namely linear and second order cone programs. This opens up the question as to how well one can approximate the cone of SOS polynomials by second order representable cones. In the last part of the paper, we present some recent negative results related to this question.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2017 IEEE 56th Annual Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2017
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages453-462
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781509028733
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 28 2017
Event56th IEEE Annual Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2017 - Melbourne, Australia
Duration: Dec 12 2017Dec 15 2017

Publication series

Name2017 IEEE 56th Annual Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2017
Volume2018-January

Other

Other56th IEEE Annual Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2017
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityMelbourne
Period12/12/1712/15/17

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Decision Sciences (miscellaneous)
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
  • Control and Optimization

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