Geometric Approaches to Near-Optimization

Abstract

The high-level goal of this project is to develop geometrically-motivated algorithms for near optimization, which involves identifying multiple nearly-optimal solutions for variational problems. The motivation here is that objective functions often have shallow regions where many candidate solutions provide reasonable levels of performance. Identifying near-optima helps engineers understand possible trade-offs when selecting a final solution to a problem, can reveal structure in the objective function, and can suggest secondary objective functions to tie-break between nearly indistinguishable points. The algorithms studied in this project are built from geometric theory, understanding the near-optimal region as a shape embedded in a high-dimensional design space. The shape of this region captures the flexibility to adjust the solution to an optimization problem without affecting the objective value significantly.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 21, 2023
Accession Number
AD1226757

Entities

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Operations Research

Technology Areas

  • Space