Adjustable Robust Optimization Problem Research Articles

Designing tractable piecewise affine policies for multi-stage adjustable robust optimization

AbstractWe study piecewise affine policies for multi-stage adjustable robust optimization (ARO) problems with non-negative right-hand side uncertainty. First, we construct new dominating uncertainty sets and show how a multi-stage ARO problem can be solved efficiently with a linear program when uncertainty is replaced by these new sets. We then demonstrate how solutions for this alternative problem can be transformed into solutions for the original problem. By carefully choosing the dominating sets, we prove strong approximation bounds for our policies and extend many previously best-known bounds for the two-staged problem variant to its multi-stage counterpart. Moreover, the new bounds are—to the best of our knowledge—the first bounds shown for the general multi-stage ARO problem considered. We extensively compare our policies to other policies from the literature and prove relative performance guarantees. In two numerical experiments, we identify beneficial and disadvantageous properties for different policies and present effective adjustments to tackle the most critical disadvantages of our policies. Overall, the experiments show that our piecewise affine policies can be computed by orders of magnitude faster than affine policies, while often yielding comparable or even better results.

Adjustable Robust Optimization with Discrete Uncertainty

In this paper, we study adjustable robust optimization (ARO) problems with discrete uncertainty. Under a very general modeling framework, we show that such two-stage robust problems can be exactly reformulated as ARO problems with objective uncertainty only. This reformulation is valid with and without the fixed recourse assumption and is not limited to continuous wait-and-see decision variables unlike most of the existing literature. Additionally, we extend an enumerative algorithm akin to a branch-and-cut scheme for which we study the asymptotic convergence. We discuss how to apply the reformulation on two variants of well-known optimization problems, a facility location problem in which uncertainty may affect the capacity values and a multiple knapsack problem with uncertain weights, and we report extensive computational results demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach. History: Accepted by Andrea Lodi, Area Editor for Design & Analysis of Algorithms – Discrete. Funding: This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research [Grants FA8655-20-1-7012, FA8655-20-1-7019].

An oracle-based algorithm for robust planning of production routing problems in closed-loop supply chains of beverage glass bottles

The demand for glass bottles is exhibiting an upward trend over time. The manufacturing of glass bottles is costlier in terms of time and resources and is associated with a higher level of heat generation and environmental pollution compared to recycling processes. In response to the aforementioned challenges, companies that use glass bottles need to implement strategies to manage their reverse supply chains in conjunction with their traditional supply chains, as the economic and environmental benefits of returned products are unquestionable. Closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) integrate forward and reverse flows of products and information. This integration helps companies to have a broader view of the whole chain. Despite these advantages, managing CLSCs can be challenging as they are exposed to many uncertainties regarding supply and demand processes, travel times, and quantity/quality of returned products.In this study, we consider the production planning, inventory management, and vehicle routing decisions of a CLSC of beverage glass bottles. We propose an MILP model and rely on a multi-stage adjustable robust optimization (ARO) formulation to deal with the randomness in both the demand for filled bottles and the requests for pickups of empty bottles. We develop an exact oracle-based algorithm to solve the ARO problem and propose a heuristic search algorithm to reduce the solution time. Our numerical experiments not only show the incompetency of the customary method, namely the affine decision rule approach, but also illustrate how our algorithms can solve the small-size problems and significantly improve the quality of the obtained solution for large problems. Furthermore, our numerical results show that robust plans tend to be sparse, meaning the routes are chosen so that empty bottles are transported to production sites in such a way that fewer new bottles need to be ordered. Thus, robust planning makes the CLSCs more environmentally friendly.

Convex Maximization via Adjustable Robust Optimization

Maximizing a convex function over convex constraints is an NP-hard problem in general. We prove that such a problem can be reformulated as an adjustable robust optimization (ARO) problem in which each adjustable variable corresponds to a unique constraint of the original problem. We use ARO techniques to obtain approximate solutions to the convex maximization problem. In order to demonstrate the complete approximation scheme, we distinguish the cases in which we have just one nonlinear constraint and multiple linear constraints. Concerning the first case, we give three examples in which one can analytically eliminate the adjustable variable and approximately solve the resulting static robust optimization problem efficiently. More specifically, we show that the norm constrained log-sum-exp (geometric) maximization problem can be approximated by (convex) exponential cone optimization techniques. Concerning the second case of multiple linear constraints, the equivalent ARO problem can be represented as an adjustable robust linear optimization problem. Using linear decision rules then returns a safe approximation of the constraints. The resulting problem is a convex optimization problem, and solving this problem gives an upper bound on the global optimum value of the original problem. By using the optimal linear decision rule, we obtain a lower bound solution as well. We derive the approximation problems explicitly for quadratic maximization, geometric maximization, and sum-of-max-linear-terms maximization problems with multiple linear constraints. Numerical experiments show that, contrary to the state-of-the-art solvers, we can approximate large-scale problems swiftly with tight bounds. In several cases, we have equal upper and lower bounds, which concludes that we have global optimality guarantees in these cases.Summary of Contribution: Maximizing a convex function over a convex set is a hard optimization problem. We reformulate this problem as an optimization problem under uncertainty, which allows us to transfer the hardness of this problem from its nonconvexity to the uncertainty of the new problem. The equivalent uncertain optimization problem can be relaxed tightly by using adjustable robust optimization techniques. In addition to building a new bridge between convex maximization and robust optimization, this approach also gives us strong algorithms that improve the state-of-the-art optimization solvers both in solution time and quality for various convex maximization problems.

Data-driven adjustable robust Day-ahead economic dispatch strategy considering uncertainties of wind power generation and electric vehicles

Considering the intermittent features of wind power generation and electric vehicles, it is important for microgrid to formulate available dispatch strategy while ensuring the system economy. A two-stage data-driven adjustable robust optimization (ARO) model is presented in this paper to realize an optimal day-ahead economic dispatch strategy for the microgrid considering the uncertainties of wind power generation and electric vehicles. In the optimization model, an imprecise-Dirichlet-model-based nonparametric ambiguity set is constructed without any presumption about the probability distributions of the uncertainties. Further, a polyhedron uncertainty set obtained from the ambiguity set is driven by historical data, and this becomes narrower with an increase in the amount of the historical data used to construct the ambiguity set. The data-driven ARO problem is converted into a traditional two-stage ARO model with the obtained polyhedron uncertainty set. Further, this can be decomposed into a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) master problem and a sub problem with a max–min structure. Then, duality theory, Big-M method, and column and constraint generation (C&CG) algorithm are applied to achieve the optimized day-ahead economic dispatch strategy for the microgrid. Case studies illustrate the solution robustness, economic benefit, flexible adjustment capability and uncertainty depiction ability of the presented method.

Optimal Operation of Isolated Micro-Grids-cluster Via Coalitional Energy Scheduling and Reserve Sharing

Microgrids (MG) cluster are isolated from the utility grid but they have the potential to achieve better techno-economic performance by using joint energy and reserve sharing among MGs. This paper proposes a techno-economic framework for the optimal operation of isolated MGs-cluster by scheduling cooperative energy sharing and real-time reserve sharing for ancillary services based on the cooperative game theory. In the day-ahead scheduling, a coalitional sharing scheme is formulated as an adjustable robust optimization (ARO) problem to optimally schedule the energy and reserves of distributed generators (DGs) and energy storage systems (ESSs), thereby responding to the uncertainties of photovoltaic systems, wind turbines, and loads. These uncertainties are the main reason for power system imbalance which is mitigated by regulating the frequency in real-time and a dynamic droop control process is used to realize the reserves in a distributed manner. This control process is embedded into the ARO problem, which is formulated as an affine ARO problem and then transformed into a deterministic optimization problem that is solved by off-shore solvers Apart from the reduction in the operation cost, the frequency restoration can be improved jointly, resulting in the coupled techno-economic contribution of the MGs in the coalition. The contribution of each MG is quantified using shapely value, a cooperative game approach. Simulations are conducted for a case study with 4 MGs and the results demonstrate the merits of the proposed cooperative scheduling scheme.

On the Optimality of Affine Policies for Budgeted Uncertainty Sets

In this paper, we study the performance of affine policies for a two-stage, adjustable, robust optimization problem with a fixed recourse and an uncertain right-hand side belonging to a budgeted uncertainty set. This is an important class of uncertainty sets, widely used in practice, in which we can specify a budget on the adversarial deviations of the uncertain parameters from the nominal values to adjust the level of conservatism. The two-stage adjustable robust optimization problem is hard to approximate within a factor better than [Formula: see text] even for budget of uncertainty sets in which [Formula: see text] is the number of decision variables. Affine policies, in which the second-stage decisions are constrained to be an affine function of the uncertain parameters provide a tractable approximation for the problem and have been observed to exhibit good empirical performance. We show that affine policies give an [Formula: see text]-approximation for the two-stage, adjustable, robust problem with fixed nonnegative recourse for budgeted uncertainty sets. This matches the hardness of approximation, and therefore, surprisingly, affine policies provide an optimal approximation for the problem (up to a constant factor). We also show strong theoretical performance bounds for affine policy for a significantly more general class of intersection of budgeted sets, including disjoint constrained budgeted sets, permutation invariant sets, and general intersection of budgeted sets. Our analysis relies on showing the existence of a near-optimal, feasible affine policy that satisfies certain nice structural properties. Based on these structural properties, we also present an alternate algorithm to compute a near-optimal affine solution that is significantly faster than computing the optimal affine policy by solving a large linear program.

Robust flows with adaptive mitigation

• Optimization model for risks in supply chains. • A realistic three-stage model takes into account mitigations. • Evaluating the objective function is NP-hard. • Developed algorithm based on cut generation is efficient in practice. We consider an adjustable robust optimization problem arising in the area of supply chains: given sets of suppliers and demand nodes, we wish to find a flow that is robust with respect to failures of the suppliers. The objective is to determine a flow that minimizes the amount of shortage in the worst-case after an optimal mitigation has been performed. An optimal mitigation is an additional flow in the residual network that mitigates as much shortage at the demand sites as possible. For this problem we give a mathematical formulation, yielding a robust flow problem with three stages where the mitigation of the last stage can be chosen adaptively depending on the scenario. We show that already evaluating the robustness of a solution is NP -hard. For optimizing with respect to this NP -hard objective function, we compare three algorithms. Namely an algorithm based on iterative cut generation that solves medium-sized instances efficiently, a simple Outer Linearization Algorithm and a Scenario Enumeration algorithm. We illustrate the performance by numerical experiments. The results show that this instance of fully adjustable robust optimization problems can be solved exactly with a reasonable performance. We also describe possible extensions to the model and the algorithm.

Aggregating Additional Flexibility From Quick-Start Devices for Multi-Energy Virtual Power Plants

A multi-energy virtual power plant can be defined as flexible cooperation of multi-energy distributed energy resources including heating and cooling devices that operates as a single entity and participates in the power markets. To exploit the potential of multi-energy distributed resources, this paper proposes a model for the aggregation of a multi-energy virtual power plant that participates in day-ahead energy and reserve markets. The reserve capacity brought by the multi-energy quick-start devices is considered in this paper, which adds binary variables to the recourse problem. The proposed model is an adjustable robust optimization problem that guarantees all possible deployment requests can be realized by the virtual power plant. Moreover, the optimal offering strategy is determined, and the total cost of the multi-energy virtual power plant is ensured to not exceed the optimal value of the objective function. A modified nested column-and-constraint generation algorithm is proposed for solving the adjustable robust optimization problem with mixed-integer recourse in specified precision efficiently compared with other KKT-based algorithms. The results from a case study of an actual industrial park demonstrate the satisfactory performance of the proposed model.

Exact conic programming reformulations of two-stage adjustable robust linear programs with new quadratic decision rules

In this paper we introduce a new parameterized Quadratic Decision Rule (QDR), a generalisation of the commonly employed Affine Decision Rule (ADR), for two-stage linear adjustable robust optimization problems with ellipsoidal uncertainty and show that (affinely parameterized) linear adjustable robust optimization problems with QDRs are numerically tractable by presenting exact semi-definite program and second order cone program reformulations. Under these QDRs, we also establish that exact conic program reformulations also hold for two-stage linear ARO problems, containing also adjustable variables in their objective functions. We then show via numerical experiments on lot-sizing problems with uncertain demand that adjustable robust linear optimization problems with QDRs improve upon the ADRs in their performance both in the worst-case sense and after simulated realization of the uncertain demand relative to the true solution.

Estimating the Robust P-Q Capability of a Technical Virtual Power Plant Under Uncertainties

The technical virtual power plant (TVPP) is a promising paradigm to facilitate the integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) while incorporating operational constraints of both DERs and networks. Due to the volatility and limited predictability of DER generation and electric loads, the output capability of the TVPP is uncertain. In this regard, this paper proposes the robust capability curve (RCC) of the TVPP, which explicitly characterizes the allowable range of the scheduled power output that is executable for the TVPP under uncertainties. Implementing the RCC can secure the scheduling of the TVPP against unexpected fluctuations of operating conditions when the TVPP participates in the transmission-level dispatch. Mathematically, the RCC is the first-stage feasible set of an adjustable robust optimization problem. An uncertainty set model incorporating the variable correlation and uncertainty budget is employed, which makes the robustness and conservatism of the RCC adjustable. A novel methodology is proposed to estimate the RCC by the convex hull of several points on its perimeter. These perimeter points are obtained by solving a series of multi scenario-optimal power flow problems with worst-case uncertainty realizations identified based on a linearized network configuration. Case studies based on the IEEE-13 test feeder validate the effectiveness of the RCC to ensure the scheduling feasibility while hedging against uncertainties. The computational efficiency of the proposed RCC estimation method is also verified based on larger-scale test systems.

Adjustable robust optimization through multi-parametric programming

Adjustable robust optimization (ARO) involves recourse decisions (i.e. reactive actions after the realization of the uncertainty, ‘wait-and-see’) as functions of the uncertainty, typically posed in a two-stage stochastic setting. Solving the general ARO problems is challenging, therefore ways to reduce the computational effort have been proposed, with the most popular being the affine decision rules, where ‘wait-and-see’ decisions are approximated as affine adjustments of the uncertainty. In this work we propose a novel method for the derivation of generalized affine decision rules for linear mixed-integer ARO problems through multi-parametric programming, that lead to the exact and global solution of the ARO problem. The problem is treated as a multi-level programming problem and it is then solved using a novel algorithm for the exact and global solution of multi-level mixed-integer linear programming problems. The main idea behind the proposed approach is to solve the lower optimization level of the ARO problem parametrically, by considering ‘here-and-now’ variables and uncertainties as parameters. This will result in a set of affine decision rules for the ‘wait-and-see’ variables as a function of ‘here-and-now’ variables and uncertainties for their entire feasible space. A set of illustrative numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the potential of the proposed novel approach.

Adjustable Robust Optimization via Fourier–Motzkin Elimination

We demonstrate how adjustable robust optimization (ARO) problems with fixed recourse can be cast as static robust optimization problems via Fourier–Motzkin elimination (FME). Through the lens of FME, we characterize the structures of the optimal decision rules for a broad class of ARO problems. A scheme based on a blending of classical FME and a simple linear programming technique that can efficiently remove redundant constraints is developed to reformulate ARO problems. This generic reformulation technique enhances the classical approximation scheme via decision rules, and it enables us to solve adjustable optimization problems to optimality. We show via numerical experiments that, for small-sized ARO problems, our novel approach finds the optimal solution. For moderate- or large-sized instances, we eliminate a subset of the adjustable variables, which improves the solutions obtained from linear decision rules.

A tight characterization of the performance of static solutions in two-stage adjustable robust linear optimization

In this paper, we study the performance of static solutions for two-stage adjustable robust linear optimization problems with uncertain constraint and objective coefficients and give a tight characterization of the adaptivity gap. Computing an optimal adjustable robust optimization problem is often intractable since it requires to compute a solution for all possible realizations of uncertain parameters (Feige et al. in Lect Notes Comput Sci 4513:439---453, 2007). On the other hand, a static solution is a single (here and now) solution that is feasible for all possible realizations of the uncertain parameters and can be computed efficiently for most dynamic optimization problems. We show that for a fairly general class of uncertainty sets, a static solution is optimal for the two-stage adjustable robust linear packing problems. This is highly surprising in view of the usual perception about the conservativeness of static solutions. Furthermore, when a static solution is not optimal for the adjustable robust problem, we give a tight approximation bound on the performance of the static solution that is related to a measure of non-convexity of a transformation of the uncertainty set. We also show that our bound is at least as good (and in many case significantly better) as the bound given by the symmetry of the uncertainty set (Bertsimas and Goyal in Math Methods Oper Res 77(3):323---343, 2013; Bertsimas et al. in Math Oper Res 36(1):24---54, 2011).

On the approximability of adjustable robust convex optimization under uncertainty

In this paper, we consider adjustable robust versions of convex optimization problems with uncertain constraints and objectives and show that under fairly general assumptions, a static robust solution provides a good approximation for these adjustable robust problems. An adjustable robust optimization problem is usually intractable since it requires to compute a solution for all possible realizations of uncertain parameters, while an optimal static solution can be computed efficiently in most cases if the corresponding deterministic problem is tractable. The performance of the optimal static robust solution is related to a fundamental geometric property, namely, the symmetry of the uncertainty set. Our work allows for the constraint and objective function coefficients to be uncertain and for the constraints and objective functions to be convex, thereby providing significant extensions of the results in Bertsimas and Goyal (Math Oper Res 35:284–305, 2010) and Bertsimas et al. (Math Oper Res 36: 24–54, 2011b) where only linear objective and linear constraints were considered. The models in this paper encompass a wide variety of problems in revenue management, resource allocation under uncertainty, scheduling problems with uncertain processing times, semidefinite optimization among many others. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first approximation bounds for adjustable robust convex optimization problems in such generality.