Constrained Optimization

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Overview

The field studies how to optimize an objective over a feasible set, from convex programs and combinatorial problems to nonconvex models with complex or conflicting constraints. Classical approaches include projection and Frank–Wolfe methods, interior-point and augmented-Lagrangian algorithms, and evolutionary search; newer work also learns feasible solutions or uses neural projections and solver warm starts. Applications range from robotic trajectory planning and power-grid operation to fair machine learning, resource allocation, and scheduling. A central challenge is balancing scalable computation with reliable feasibility and convergence guarantees, especially for nonconvex or infeasible problems and settings without standard regularity conditions.

Latest papers

CardsList

342 papers40 papers in the last four weeks, up 29% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

  1. A Quantum-Assisted Agentic Distributed Artificial Intelligence Framework for Deadline-Bounded Orchestration of Hybrid Renewable Microgrids

    Jun 12, 2026Iacovos I. Ioannou, Saher Javaid, Minella Bezha +3Multi-Agent OrchestrationConstrained Optimization

    Department of Computer Science, Philips University, Nicosia, Cyprus · Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus and the CYENS Centre of Excellence, Nicosia, Cyprus · School of Information Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Nomi, Ishikawa, Japan +1

  2. Scalable Deep Unfolding of Conic Optimizers

    Jun 11, 2026Alex Oshin, Rahul Vodeb Ghosh, Evangelos A. TheodorouSemidefinite ProgrammingImplicit Differentiation

    Georgia Institute of Technology

  3. Neural Slack Variables for Shape Constraints

    Jun 11, 2026Ruben Wiedemann, Antoine Jacquier, Lukas GononMonotonicity ConstraintsConstrained Optimization

    Imperial College London London, UK · University of St. Gallen St. Gallen, Switzerland

  4. Different Layers, Different Manifolds: Module-Wise Weight-Space Geometry in Transformer Optimization

    Jun 11, 2026Kirato YoshiharaStiefel Manifold OptimizationNeural Network Optimization

    School of Engineering Science, The University of Osaka, Osaka, Japan.

  5. Adjoint Method versus Physics-Informed Neural Networks in PDE-Constrained Inverse Problems

    Jun 10, 2026Zhen Zhang, Alessandro Alla, George Em KarniadakisConstrained OptimizationPhysics-Informed ML

    Division of Applied Mathematic, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA · Department of Mathematics, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy

  6. Range-Aware Bayesian Optimization for Discovering Diverse Designs within Target Property Windows

    Jun 10, 2026Shengli Jiang, Jason Wu, Charles M. Schroeder +1Molecular OptimizationBayesian Optimization

    Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA

  7. PL-KKT-hPINN: Enforcing Nonlinear Equality Constraints on Neural Networks via Piecewise-Linear Projection

    Jun 9, 2026Fateme Mohammad Mohammadi, Hector Budman, Joshua L. PulsipherNeural Surrogate ModelingConstrained Optimization

    Department of Chemical Engineering University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada

  8. LieIPM: Lie Group Interior Point Method for Direct Trajectory Optimization of Rigid Bodies

    Jun 9, 2026Sangli Teng, Ruiqi Zhang, Tzu-Yuan Lin +5Trajectory OptimizationRiemannian Optimization

    University of California, Berkeley · MIT · Ohio University +1

  9. Duality for Optimal Multi-Item, Multi-Bidder Auction Design: Revenue Certificates through Deep Learning

    Jun 8, 2026Yanchen Jiang, David C. Parkes, Tonghan WangPrimal-Dual OptimizationGame Theory

    Harvard University, USA · College of AI, Tsinghua University, China

  10. Parameter Tuning with Generalization Guarantees for GPU-Accelerated Linear Programming

    Jun 7, 2026Siddharth Prasad, Dravyansh SharmaPrimal-Dual OptimizationConstrained Optimization

    Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago

  11. Bayesian Optimization of a Multi-Product Chemical Reactor Using Composite Models and Partial Physics Knowledge

    Jun 7, 2026Liqiu Dong, Marta Zagórowska, Mehmet MercangözBayesian OptimizationSafe Bayesian Optimization

    Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK · DCSC, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

  12. Residual-Controlled Multiplier Learning for Stochastic Constrained Decision-Making

    Jun 5, 2026Kang Liu, Jianchen Hu, Ziyu Qu +3Stochastic OptimizationPrimal-Dual Optimization

    School of Future Technology Xi’an Jiaotong University Xi’an, China, 710049 · School of Automation Science and Engineering Xi’an Jiaotong University Xi’an, China, 710049 · School of Mathematics and Physics China University of Geosciences Wuhan, China, 430074 +2

  13. Multi-ResNets for Subspace Preconditioning in Constrained Optimization

    Jun 4, 2026Merve Karakas, Christopher J. Williams, Emmanuel O. Balogun +3Residual LearningLearning to Optimize

    UCLA · University of Oxford · Sunrun† +1

  14. Finding Most Influential Sets

    Jun 4, 2026Lucas D. Konrad, Nikolas KuschnigConstrained Optimization

    Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria · Monash University, Australia

  15. R-APS: Compositional Reasoning and In-Context Meta-Learning for Constrained Design via Reflective Adversarial Pareto Search

    Jun 3, 2026João Pedro Gandarela, Thiago Rios, Stefan Menzel +1Mechanism DesignMeta-Learning

    Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland · École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland · Honda Research Institute Europe, Germany +2

  16. DiffSlack: Learning under Nonlinear Inequality Constraints via Learnable Slack Variables

    Jun 3, 2026Ziqian Wang, Chenxi Fang, Zhen ZhangConstrained OptimizationDifferentiable Optimization

    State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China · Beijing Key Laboratory of Transformative High-end Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China · Automotive Electronics Business Unit at Hirain Inc., China

  17. Optuna Constrained Tree-Structured Parzen Estimator Is a Joint Density Generalization of c-TPE

    Jun 3, 2026Shuhei Watanabe, Kaichi IrieBayesian OptimizationConstrained Optimization

    Independent Researcher · Kyoto University

  18. Rethinking Neural Width for Alternating Current Optimal Power Flow Proxies

    Jun 2, 2026Dhruvi Khandelwal, Anurag Basistha, Ayushi Jolotia +1Neural Surrogate ModelingOptimal Power Flow

    Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, India. · Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, India. · Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India.

  19. The Shadow Price of Reasoning: Economic Perspective on Optimal Budget Allocation for LLMs

    Jun 2, 2026Xu Wan, Speed Zhu, Jianwei Cai +4Cost-Aware InferenceInference-Time Scaling

    1Zhejiang University · 2Tecent HY Team · 3Peking University

  20. Coordination Graphs for Constrained Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

    Jun 1, 2026Santiago Amaya-Corredor, Miguel Calvo-Fullana, Anders JonssonMulti-Objective Reinforcement LearningMulti-Agent System Optimization

    Department of Engineering, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

  21. Everywhere Learning: Artificial Intelligence with Pointwise Constraints

    Jun 1, 2026Ignacio Boero, Ignacio Hounie, Luiz Chamon +1Constrained OptimizationStatistical Learning Theory

    Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania · École polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris

  22. Global Convergence of a Line-Search Filter Differential Dynamic Programming Method

    May 31, 2026Ming Xu, Iman ShamesOptimization Convergence AnalysisConstrained Optimization

    School of Computer and Communication Sciences EPFL 1015 Lasanne, Switzerland · Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering University of Melbourne Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

  23. Infeasible optimization problems and the hierarchical augmented Lagrangian method in imitation learning

    May 30, 2026Roland Andrews, Justin Carpentier, Ajay SathyaImitation LearningAugmented Lagrangian Method

  24. Unlearning in Diffusion Models: A Unified Framework with KL Divergence and Likelihood Constraints

    May 29, 2026Shervin Khalafi, Alejandro Ribeiro, Dongsheng DingPrimal-Dual OptimizationDiffusion Model Unlearning

    University of Pennsylvania · University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  25. Exploiting Chordal Sparsity for Globally Optimal Estimation with Factor Graphs

    May 28, 2026Avinash Subramanian, Connor Holmes, Timothy D. Barfoot +2Semidefinite ProgrammingFactor Graph Optimization

    College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA · Robotics Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

  26. Bound-Constrained Sparse Representation for Electrical Impedance Tomography

    May 27, 2026Chun Zhang, Dong LiuSparse RecoveryImage Reconstruction

    School of Biomedical Engineering and Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, University of Science and Technology of China, Suzhou 215123, China · Laboratory of Spin Magnetic Resonance and Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Scientific Instrument Development and Application, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China · Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Multimodal Digital Twin Technology, Suzhou 215123, China

  27. Constrained Auto-Bidding via Generative Response Modeling

    May 27, 2026Eunseok Yang, Xingdong Zuo, Kyung-Min KimAutomated BiddingOnline Advertising

    NAVER Corporation Seongnam-si, Republic of Korea

  28. Developing a Totally Unimodular Linear Program for Optimal Conformance Checking: When and Why It Complements A*

    May 26, 2026Izack CohenAlgorithm SelectionProcess Mining

    aFaculty of Engineering, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

  29. Blocked Gibbs meets Diffusion Transformers: Unsupervised Learning for Constraint Optimization

    May 24, 2026Yudong W. Xu, Wenhao Li, Xiaoyu Wang +2Diffusion TransformerConstrained Optimization

    University of Toronto · Vector Institute

  30. Mitigating Gradient Pathology in PINNs through Aligned Constraint

    May 24, 2026Yichen Luo, Peiyu Zhu, Dongxiao Hu +5Neural PDE SolversGradient Interference

    Department of Information Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden · School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, Peking University, Beijing, China · School of Advanced Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China +2