Distributional Robustness in Output Feedback Regret-Optimal Control

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yan, Shuhao, Scherer, Carsten W.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yan, Shuhao
Scherer, Carsten W.
author_facet Yan, Shuhao
Scherer, Carsten W.
contents This paper studies distributionally robust regret-optimal (DRRO) control with purified output feedback for linear systems subject to additive disturbances and measurement noise. These uncertainties (including the initial system state) are assumed to be stochastic and distributed according to an unknown joint probability distribution within a Wasserstein ambiguity set. We design affine controllers to minimise the worst-case expected regret over all distributions in this set. The expected regret is defined as the difference between an expected cost incurred by an affine causal controller and the expected cost incurred by the optimal noncausal controller with perfect knowledge of the disturbance trajectory at the outset. Leveraging the duality theory in distributionally robust optimisation, we derive strong duality results for worst-case expectation problems involving general quadratic objective functions, enabling exact reformulations of the DRRO control problem as semidefinite programs (SDPs). Focusing on one such reformulation, we eliminate certain decision variables. This technique also permits a further equivalent reformulation of the SDP as a distributed optimisation problem, with potential to enhance scalability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_10150
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Distributional Robustness in Output Feedback Regret-Optimal Control
Yan, Shuhao
Scherer, Carsten W.
Optimization and Control
Systems and Control
This paper studies distributionally robust regret-optimal (DRRO) control with purified output feedback for linear systems subject to additive disturbances and measurement noise. These uncertainties (including the initial system state) are assumed to be stochastic and distributed according to an unknown joint probability distribution within a Wasserstein ambiguity set. We design affine controllers to minimise the worst-case expected regret over all distributions in this set. The expected regret is defined as the difference between an expected cost incurred by an affine causal controller and the expected cost incurred by the optimal noncausal controller with perfect knowledge of the disturbance trajectory at the outset. Leveraging the duality theory in distributionally robust optimisation, we derive strong duality results for worst-case expectation problems involving general quadratic objective functions, enabling exact reformulations of the DRRO control problem as semidefinite programs (SDPs). Focusing on one such reformulation, we eliminate certain decision variables. This technique also permits a further equivalent reformulation of the SDP as a distributed optimisation problem, with potential to enhance scalability.
title Distributional Robustness in Output Feedback Regret-Optimal Control
topic Optimization and Control
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10150