Spring 2022 ECE Distinguished Seminar Series
The Interplay Between Learning and Control in Zeroth-order Methods
Dr. Na Li
Gordon McKay Professor.
Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University
January 28, 2022, 11:00 am on Zoom
Zoom Meeting Link: https://gmu.zoom.us/j/92398070548
Abstract:
The recent explosion of data from our physical world has stimulated active research in learning, optimization, and control. Though learning and control have their own evolutionary paths, they have interplayed with each other in the past and now. In this talk,
we will discuss the synergy between learning and control centering around zeroth-order optimization methods. Firstly, we will talk about how the learning method, zeroth-order optimization, could be used in model-free optimal control in (multiagent) dynamical
systems. We will also discuss the optimization landscape of the optimal control for partially observable systems, which is crucial for the success of such learning methods. Then, we will shift our focus to study how control tools such as high and low pass
filters could reduce the variance of zeroth-order learning method and speed up its learning speed.
Joint work with Yujie Tang, Yingying Li, Xin Chen, and Yang Zheng.