Robust Optimization Approximation for Ambiguous P-Model and Its Application

Abstract

Robust optimization is a powerful and relatively novel methodology to cope with optimization problems in the presence of uncertainty. The positive aspect of robust optimization approach is its computational tractability that attracts more and more attention. In this paper, we focus on an ambiguous P-model where probability distributions are partially known. We discuss robust counterpart (RC) of uncertain linear constraints under two refined uncertain sets by robust approach and further find the safe tractable approximations of chance constraints in the ambiguous P-model. Because of the probability constraints embedded in the ambiguous P-model, it is computationally intractable. The advantage of our approach lies in choosing an implicit way to treat stochastic uncertainty models instead of solving them directly. The process above can enable the transformation of proposed P-model to a tractable deterministic one under the refined uncertainty sets. A numerical example about portfolio selection demonstrates that the ambiguous P-model can help the decision maker to determine the optimal investment proportions of various stocks. Sensitivity analyses explore the trade-off between optimization and robustness by adjusting parameter values. Comparison study is conducted to validate the benefit of our ambiguous P-model.