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We study robust convex quadratic programs where the uncertain problem parameters can contain both continuous and integer components. Under the natural boundedness assumption on the uncertainty set, we show that the generic problems are amenable to exact copositive programming reformulations of polynomial size. These convex optimization problems are NP-hard but admit a conservative semidefinite programming (SDP) approximation that can be solved efficiently. We prove that the popular approximate S-lemma method—which is valid only in the case of continuous uncertainty—is weaker than our approximation. We also show that all results can be extended to the two-stage robust quadratic optimization setting if the problem has complete recourse. We assess the effectiveness of our proposed SDP reformulations and demonstrate their superiority over the state-of-the-art solution schemes on instances of least squares, project management, and multi-item newsvendor problems.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
A Convex Optimization Approach to Compute Trapping Regions for Lossless Quadratic Systems
ABSTRACT Quadratic systems with lossless quadratic terms arise in many applications, including models of atmosphere and incompressible fluid flows. Such systems have a trapping region if all trajectories eventually converge to and stay within a bounded set. Conditions for the existence and characterization of trapping regions have been established in prior work for boundedness analysis. However, prior solutions have used non‐convex optimization methods, resulting in conservative estimates. In this paper, we build on this prior work and provide a convex semidefinite programming condition for the existence of a trapping region. The condition allows for precise verification or falsification of the existence of a trapping region. If a trapping region exists, then we provide a second semidefinite program to compute the least conservative radius of the spherical trapping region. Two low‐dimensional systems are provided as examples to illustrate the results. A third high‐dimensional example is also included to demonstrate that the computation required for the analysis can be scaled to systems of up to states. The proposed method provides a precise and computationally efficient numerical approach for computing trapping regions. We anticipate this work will benefit future studies on modeling and control of lossless quadratic dynamical systems.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1943988
- PAR ID:
- 10584569
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control
- Volume:
- 35
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 1049-8923
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2425 to 2436
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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