Distributed Semidefinite Programming with Application to Large-scale System Analysis

• Distributed algorithms for solving coupled semidefinite programs (SDPs) commonly require many iterations to converge. They also put high computational demand on the computational agents. In this paper we show that in case the coupled problem has an inherent tree structure, it is possible to devise an efficient distributed algorithm for solving such problems. The proposed algorithm relies on predictor-corrector primal-dual interior-point methods, where we use a message-passing algorithm to compute the search directions distributedly. Message-passing here is closely related to dynamic programming over trees. This allows us to compute the exact search directions in a finite number of steps. This is because, computing the search directions requires a recursion over the tree structure and hence, terminates after an upward and downward pass through the tree. Furthermore this number can be computed apriori and only depends on the coupling structure of the problem. We use the proposed algorithm for analyzing robustness of large-scale uncertain systems distributedly. We test the performance of this algorithm using numerical examples.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Reglerteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Control Engineering (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Matematik -- Beräkningsmatematik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Mathematics -- Computational Mathematics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Algorithm design and analysis

Convergence

Couplings

Distributed algorithms

distributed algorithms

interconnected uncertain systems

Linear matrix inequalities

primal-dual methods

robustness analysis

SDPs

Symmetric matrices

Uncertain systems

Distributed algorithms; interconnected uncertain systems; primal-dual methods; robustness analysis; semidefinite programs (SDPs)

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)