Probabilistic Approach to Black-Box Binary Optimization with Budget Constraints: Application to Sensor Placement

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1. Verfasser: Attia, Ahmed
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Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Attia, Ahmed
author_facet Attia, Ahmed
contents We present a fully probabilistic approach for solving binary optimization problems with black-box objective functions and with budget constraints. In the probabilistic approach, the optimization variable is viewed as a random variable and is associated with a parametric probability distribution. The original optimization problem is replaced with an optimization over the expected value of the original objective, which is then optimized over the probability distribution parameters. The resulting optimal parameter (optimal policy) is used to sample the binary space to produce estimates of the optimal solution(s) of the original binary optimization problem. The probability distribution is chosen from the family of Bernoulli models because the optimization variable is binary. The optimization constraints generally restrict the feasibility region. This can be achieved by modeling the random variable with a conditional distribution given satisfiability of the constraints. Thus, in this work we develop conditional Bernoulli distributions to model the random variable conditioned by the total number of nonzero entries, that is, the budget constraint. This approach (a) is generally applicable to binary optimization problems with nonstochastic black-box objective functions and budget constraints; (b) accounts for budget constraints by employing conditional probabilities that sample only the feasible region and thus considerably reduces the computational cost compared with employing soft constraints; and (c) does not employ soft constraints and thus does not require tuning of a regularization parameter, for example to promote sparsity, which is challenging in sensor placement optimization problems. The proposed approach is verified numerically by using an idealized bilinear binary optimization problem and is validated by using a sensor placement experiment in a parameter identification setup.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_05830
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Probabilistic Approach to Black-Box Binary Optimization with Budget Constraints: Application to Sensor Placement
Attia, Ahmed
Optimization and Control
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Machine Learning
Combinatorics
Applications
90C27, 60C05, 62K05, 35R30, 35Q93, 65C60, 93E35
We present a fully probabilistic approach for solving binary optimization problems with black-box objective functions and with budget constraints. In the probabilistic approach, the optimization variable is viewed as a random variable and is associated with a parametric probability distribution. The original optimization problem is replaced with an optimization over the expected value of the original objective, which is then optimized over the probability distribution parameters. The resulting optimal parameter (optimal policy) is used to sample the binary space to produce estimates of the optimal solution(s) of the original binary optimization problem. The probability distribution is chosen from the family of Bernoulli models because the optimization variable is binary. The optimization constraints generally restrict the feasibility region. This can be achieved by modeling the random variable with a conditional distribution given satisfiability of the constraints. Thus, in this work we develop conditional Bernoulli distributions to model the random variable conditioned by the total number of nonzero entries, that is, the budget constraint. This approach (a) is generally applicable to binary optimization problems with nonstochastic black-box objective functions and budget constraints; (b) accounts for budget constraints by employing conditional probabilities that sample only the feasible region and thus considerably reduces the computational cost compared with employing soft constraints; and (c) does not employ soft constraints and thus does not require tuning of a regularization parameter, for example to promote sparsity, which is challenging in sensor placement optimization problems. The proposed approach is verified numerically by using an idealized bilinear binary optimization problem and is validated by using a sensor placement experiment in a parameter identification setup.
title Probabilistic Approach to Black-Box Binary Optimization with Budget Constraints: Application to Sensor Placement
topic Optimization and Control
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Machine Learning
Combinatorics
Applications
90C27, 60C05, 62K05, 35R30, 35Q93, 65C60, 93E35
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.05830