An adaptive importance sampling algorithm for risk-averse optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Pieraccini, Sandra, Vanzan, Tommaso
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Pieraccini, Sandra
Vanzan, Tommaso
author_facet Pieraccini, Sandra
Vanzan, Tommaso
contents Adaptive sampling algorithms are modern and efficient methods that dynamically adjust the sample size throughout the optimization process. However, they may encounter difficulties in risk-averse settings, particularly due to the challenge of accurately sampling from the tails of the underlying distribution of random inputs. This often leads to a much faster growth of the sample size compared to risk-neutral problems. In this work, we propose a novel adaptive sampling algorithm that adapts both the sample size and the sampling distribution at each iteration. The biasing distributions are constructed on the fly, leveraging a reduced-order model of the objective function to be minimized, and are designed to oversample a so-called risk region. As a result, a reduction of the variance of the gradients is achieved, which permits to use fewer samples per iteration compared to a standard algorithm, while still preserving the asymptotic convergence rate. Our focus is on the minimization of the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR), and we establish the convergence of the proposed computational framework. Numerical experiments confirm the substantial computational savings achieved by our approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_10084
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An adaptive importance sampling algorithm for risk-averse optimization
Pieraccini, Sandra
Vanzan, Tommaso
Optimization and Control
Numerical Analysis
Adaptive sampling algorithms are modern and efficient methods that dynamically adjust the sample size throughout the optimization process. However, they may encounter difficulties in risk-averse settings, particularly due to the challenge of accurately sampling from the tails of the underlying distribution of random inputs. This often leads to a much faster growth of the sample size compared to risk-neutral problems. In this work, we propose a novel adaptive sampling algorithm that adapts both the sample size and the sampling distribution at each iteration. The biasing distributions are constructed on the fly, leveraging a reduced-order model of the objective function to be minimized, and are designed to oversample a so-called risk region. As a result, a reduction of the variance of the gradients is achieved, which permits to use fewer samples per iteration compared to a standard algorithm, while still preserving the asymptotic convergence rate. Our focus is on the minimization of the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR), and we establish the convergence of the proposed computational framework. Numerical experiments confirm the substantial computational savings achieved by our approach.
title An adaptive importance sampling algorithm for risk-averse optimization
topic Optimization and Control
Numerical Analysis
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.10084