Distributed online primal-dual subgradient method on unbalanced directed networks

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate a distributed online optimization method on multiagent communication networks. We consider a distributed prime-dual subgradient algorithm for an online convex optimization problem with time-varying coupled constraints. Each agent updates the estimations for the primal and dual optimizers by a consensus-based online algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, the gradient direction is scaled by estimating the left eigenvector of a weight matrix associated with the directed communication network. The scaling procedure enables agents in the network to estimate the time-varying optimal solutions by counterbalancing the unbalanced communication flows. The performance of the proposed algorithm is examined by a dynamic regret and a fit, which evaluate the cumulative error against the time-varying optimal cost function and the constraint function, respectively. We provide a sufficient condition under which both the dynamic regret and the fit are sublinear. A numerical example of an online economic dispatch problem confirms the validity of the proposed method.