Overview
Over the past decade, considerable research effort has been devoted to the development and synthesis of control algorithms that are inspired by optimization algorithms. These activities are motivated by the fundamental observation that in many control applications - with examples in the control of transportation systems, power networks, robotic systems, and epidemic models - it is necessary to control physical systems to optimal setpoints and simultaneously update these setpoints during runtime by taking into account for several optimality requirements, such as system efficiency, user satisfaction, and minimality of the control effort.
From this background, it is increasingly evident that physical systems and dynamical optimization algorithms are becoming progressively integrated and that optimization algorithms play a key role in future control paradigms, and thus their behavior needs to be taken into account fundamentally when designing modern autonomous and intelligent systems. These practical motivations and research questions have led to a flourishing research field that has received considerable attention during the past decade, with contributions from several research communities (including Controls, Optimization, and Machine Learning) and many research groups worldwide.
Objectives
This workshop aims to report recent research achievements in the use of online optimization algorithms for feedback control and to identify emerging research challenges in the area. The workshop will construct around two central themes: (i) the synthesis of feedback optimization methods using data-driven (or model-free) techniques - which broadly includes the use of techniques from data-driven control as well as the use of derivative-free methods from optimization - and (ii) the adoption of feedback optimization methods for the control of systems with a network structure.
The main goals of this workshop are as follows:- to provide a brief tutorial for students and researchers on feedback optimization techniques
- to give an overview of ongoing research activities, and present recent research results in the area
- to discuss open challenges and highly promising research directions
Target Audience
We invite all interested students, researchers, and practitioners from both the industry and academia that are interested in interdisciplinary studies at the interface of control theory, optimization theory, and computer science.