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Stochastic approximation algorithms for constrained optimization via simulation

Published: 04 February 2011 Publication History

Abstract

We develop four algorithms for simulation-based optimization under multiple inequality constraints. Both the cost and the constraint functions are considered to be long-run averages of certain state-dependent single-stage functions. We pose the problem in the simulation optimization framework by using the Lagrange multiplier method. Two of our algorithms estimate only the gradient of the Lagrangian, while the other two estimate both the gradient and the Hessian of it. In the process, we also develop various new estimators for the gradient and Hessian. All our algorithms use two simulations each. Two of these algorithms are based on the smoothed functional (SF) technique, while the other two are based on the simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) method. We prove the convergence of our algorithms and show numerical experiments on a setting involving an open Jackson network. The Newton-based SF algorithm is seen to show the best overall performance.

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      cover image ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation
      ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation  Volume 21, Issue 3
      March 2011
      141 pages
      ISSN:1049-3301
      EISSN:1558-1195
      DOI:10.1145/1921598
      Issue’s Table of Contents
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Publication History

      Published: 04 February 2011
      Accepted: 01 August 2010
      Revised: 01 August 2010
      Received: 01 May 2009
      Published in TOMACS Volume 21, Issue 3

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      Author Tags

      1. Lagrange multiplier
      2. SF estimates
      3. SPSA estimates
      4. Simulation-based constrained optimization
      5. inequality constraints
      6. stochastic approximation

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