pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Sharp Hybrid Zonotopes: Set Operations and the Reformulation-linearization Technique
Authors: Jonah J. Glunt, Joshua A. Robbins, Daniel Silvestre, Herschel C. Pangborn
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00

Mixed integer set representations, and specifically hybrid zonotopes, have enabled new techniques for reachability and verification of nonlinear and hybrid systems. Mixed-integer sets which have the property that their convex relaxation is equal to their convex hull are said to be sharp. This property allows the convex hull to be computed with minimal overhead, and is known to be important for improving the convergence rates of mixed-integer optimization algorithms that rely on convex relaxations. This paper examines methods for formulating sharp hybrid zonotopes and provides sharpness-preserving methods for performing several key set operations. The paper then shows how the reformulation-linearization technique can be applied to create a sharp realization of a hybrid zonotope that is initially not sharp. A numerical example applies this technique to find the convex hull of a level set of a feedforward ReLU neural network.
Stabilizing NMPC Approaches for Underactuated Mechanical Systems on the SE(3) Manifold
Authors: Jean C. Pereira, Valter J. S. Leite, Guilherme V. Raffo
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Model Predictive Control

This paper addresses the motion control problem for underactuated mechanical systems with full attitude control and one translational force input to manage the six degrees of freedom involved in the three-dimensional Euclidean space. These systems are often classified as second-order nonholonomic due to their completely nonintegrable acceleration constraints. To tackle this complex control problem, we propose two nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) schemes that ensure closed-loop stability and recursive feasibility without terminal conditions. The system dynamics are modeled on the SE(3) manifold for a globally and unique description of rigid body configurations. One NMPC scheme also aims to reduce mission time as an economic criterion. The controllers' effectiveness is validated through numerical experiments on a quadrotor UAV.
Throughput Maximizing Takeoff Scheduling for eVTOL Vehicles in On-Demand Urban Air Mobility Systems
Authors: Milad Pooladsanj, Ketan Savla, Petros A. Ioannou
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Scheduling

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) offers a solution to current traffic congestion by using electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles to provide on-demand air mobility in urban areas. Effective traffic management is crucial for efficient operation of UAM systems, especially for high-demand scenarios. In this paper, we present a centralized framework for conflict-free takeoff scheduling of eVTOLs in on-demand UAM systems. Specifically, we provide a scheduling policy, called VertiSync, which jointly schedules UAM vehicles for servicing trip requests and rebalancing, subject to safety margins and energy requirements. We characterize the system-level throughput of VertiSync, which determines the demand threshold at which the average waiting time transitions from being stable to being increasing over time. We show that the proposed policy maximizes throughput for sufficiently large fleet size and if the UAM network has a certain symmetry property. We demonstrate the performance of VertiSync through a case study for the city of Los Angeles, and show that it significantly reduces average passenger waiting time compared to a first-come first-serve scheduling policy.
System Identification Under Bounded Noise: Optimal Rates Beyond Least Squares
Authors: Xiong Zeng, Jing Yu, Necmiye Ozay
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00

System identification is a fundamental problem in control and learning, particularly in high-stakes applications where data efficiency is critical. Classical approaches, such as the ordinary least squares estimator (OLS), achieve an $O(1/\sqrt{T})$ convergence rate under Gaussian noise assumptions, where $T$ is the number of samples. This rate has been shown to match the lower bound. However, in many practical scenarios, noise is known to be bounded, opening the possibility of improving sample complexity. In this work, we establish the minimax lower bound for system identification under bounded noise, proving that the $O(1/T)$ convergence rate is indeed optimal. We further demonstrate that OLS remains limited to an $\Omega(1/\sqrt{T})$ convergence rate, making it fundamentally suboptimal in the presence of bounded noise. Finally, we instantiate two natural variations of OLS that obtain the optimal sample complexity.
Physics-Informed Deep B-Spline Networks for Dynamical Systems
Authors: Zhuoyuan Wang, Raffaele Romagnoli, Jasmine Ratchford, Yorie Nakahira
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Operator learning, Physics-informed machine learning

Physics-informed machine learning provides an approach to combining data and governing physics laws for solving complex partial differential equations (PDEs). However, efficiently solving PDEs with varying parameters and changing initial conditions and boundary conditions (ICBCs) with theoretical guarantees remains an open challenge. We propose a hybrid framework that uses a neural network to learn B-spline control points to approximate solutions to PDEs with varying system and ICBC parameters. The proposed network can be trained efficiently as one can directly specify ICBCs without imposing losses, calculate physics-informed loss functions through analytical formulas, and requires only learning the weights of B-spline functions as opposed to both weights and basis as in traditional neural operator learning methods. We provide theoretical guarantees that the proposed B-spline networks serve as universal approximators for the set of solutions of PDEs with varying ICBCs under mild conditions and establish bounds on the generalization errors in physics-informed learning. We also demonstrate in experiments that the proposed B-spline network can solve problems with discontinuous ICBCs and outperforms existing methods, and is able to learn solutions of 3D dynamics with diverse initial conditions.
Stabilizing Linear Systems under Partial Observability: Sample Complexity and Fundamental Limits
Authors: Ziyi Zhang, Yorie Nakahira, Guannan Qu
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00

We study the problem of stabilizing an unknown partially observable linear time-invariant (LTI) system. For fully observable systems, leveraging an unstable/stable subspace decomposition approach, state-of-art sample complexity is independent from system dimension $n$ and only scales with respect to the dimension of the unstable subspace. However, it remains open whether such sample complexity can be achieved for partially observable systems because such systems do not admit a uniquely identifiable unstable subspace. In this paper, we propose LTS-P, a novel technique that leverages compressed singular value decomposition (SVD) on the ''lifted'' Hankel matrix to estimate the unstable subsystem up to an unknown transformation. Then, we design a stabilizing controller that integrates a robust stabilizing controller for the unstable mode and a small-gain-type assumption on the stable subspace. We show that LTS-P stabilizes unknown partially observable LTI systems with state-of-the-art sample complexity that is dimension-free and only scales with the number of unstable modes, which significantly reduces data requirements for high-dimensional systems with many stable modes.
Distributed Consensus Optimization with Consensus ALADIN
Authors: Xu Du, Jingzhe Wang
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Computational Efficiency

TThe paper proposes the Consensus Augmented Lagrange Alternating Direction Inexact Newton (Consensus ALADIN) algorithm, a novel approach for solving distributed consensus optimization problems (DC). Consensus ALADIN allows each agent to independently solve its own nonlinear programming problem while coordinating with other agents by solving a consensus quadratic programming (QP) problem. Building on this, we propose Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) Consensus ALADIN, a communication-and-computation-efficient Consensus ALADIN.BFGS Consensus ALADIN improves communication efficiency through BFGS approximation techniques and enhances computational efficiency by deriving a closed form for the consensus QP problem. Additionally, by replacing the BFGS approximation with a scaled identity matrix, we develop Reduced Consensus ALADIN, a more computationally efficient variant. We establish the convergence theory for Consensus ALADIN and demonstrate its effectiveness through application to a non-convex sensor allocation problem.
Deep Q-Learning with Gradient Target Tracking
Authors: Donghwan Lee, Bum Geun Park, Taeho Lee
Date: 2025-03-20 00:00:00
Tasks: Q-Learning

This paper introduces Q-learning with gradient target tracking, a novel reinforcement learning framework that provides a learned continuous target update mechanism as an alternative to the conventional hard update paradigm. In the standard deep Q-network (DQN), the target network is a copy of the online network's weights, held fixed for a number of iterations before being periodically replaced via a hard update. While this stabilizes training by providing consistent targets, it introduces a new challenge: the hard update period must be carefully tuned to achieve optimal performance. To address this issue, we propose two gradient-based target update methods: DQN with asymmetric gradient target tracking (AGT2-DQN) and DQN with symmetric gradient target tracking (SGT2-DQN). These methods replace the conventional hard target updates with continuous and structured updates using gradient descent, which effectively eliminates the need for manual tuning. We provide a theoretical analysis proving the convergence of these methods in tabular settings. Additionally, empirical evaluations demonstrate their advantages over standard DQN baselines, which suggest that gradient-based target updates can serve as an effective alternative to conventional target update mechanisms in Q-learning.
Prospects for endurance augmentation of small unmanned systems using butane-fueled thermoelectric generation
Authors: Morgan Williamson, Aditya Rao, Evan Segura, Bryson Wylie, Matthew Hall
Date: 2025-03-20 00:00:00

We investigate the potential of enhancing small (<20 kg) drone endurance by exploiting the high energy density of hydrocarbons using a prototype generator based on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) thermoelectric energy conversion technology. A proof-of-concept prototype was developed to vet design and engineering challenges and to bolster validity of resultant conclusions. The combination of the prototype performance and modeling suggests that endurance augmentation remains a difficult technical challenge with no clear immediate remedy despite many expectant alternatives. Across a sample of representative drones including ground- and air-based, multicopter and fixed wing drones, we report the following: from their current maximum values of 12%, thermoelectric (TE) generator module efficiencies must increase by over two times to achieve endurance parity with lithium batteries for VTOL multicopters. On the other hand, current TE efficiencies can compete with lithium batteries for some low power fixed wing and ground-based drones. Technical contributors for these results include weight of non-energy contributing components, low specific power and the associated tradeoff between specific power and specific energy due to fuel mass fraction, and lastly, low efficiencies.
A New Statistical Model of Star Speckles for Learning to Detect and Characterize Exoplanets in Direct Imaging Observations
Authors: Théo Bodrito, Olivier Flasseur, Julien Mairal, Jean Ponce, Maud Langlois, Anne-Marie Lagrange
Date: 2025-03-21 00:00:00
Proceeding: CVPR 2025 1
Tasks: Astronomy

The search for exoplanets is an active field in astronomy, with direct imaging as one of the most challenging methods due to faint exoplanet signals buried within stronger residual starlight. Successful detection requires advanced image processing to separate the exoplanet signal from this nuisance component. This paper presents a novel statistical model that captures nuisance fluctuations using a multi-scale approach, leveraging problem symmetries and a joint spectral channel representation grounded in physical principles. Our model integrates into an interpretable, end-to-end learnable framework for simultaneous exoplanet detection and flux estimation. The proposed algorithm is evaluated against the state of the art using datasets from the SPHERE instrument operating at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). It significantly improves the precision-recall trade-off, notably on challenging datasets that are otherwise unusable by astronomers. The proposed approach is computationally efficient, robust to varying data quality, and well suited for large-scale observational surveys.
Making the unmodulated pyramid wavefront sensor smart II. First on-sky demonstration of extreme adaptive optics with deep learning
Authors: R. Landman, S. Y. Haffert, J. D. Long, J. R. Males, L. M. Close, W. B. Foster, K. Van Gorkom, O. Guyon, A. D. Hedglen, P. T. Johnson, M. Y. Kautz, J. K. Kueny, J. Li, J. Liberman, J. Lumbres, E. A. McEwen, A. McLeod, L. Schatz, E. Tonucci, K. Twitchell
Date: 2025-03-20 00:00:00

Pyramid wavefront sensors (PWFSs) are the preferred choice for current and future extreme adaptive optics (XAO) systems. Almost all instruments use the PWFS in its modulated form to mitigate its limited linearity range. However, this modulation comes at the cost of a reduction in sensitivity, a blindness to petal-piston modes, and a limit to the sensor's ability to operate at high speeds. Therefore, there is strong interest to use the PWFS without modulation, which can be enabled with nonlinear reconstructors. Here, we present the first on-sky demonstration of XAO with an unmodulated PWFS using a nonlinear reconstructor based on convolutional neural networks. We discuss the real-time implementation on the Magellan Adaptive Optics eXtreme (MagAO-X) instrument using the optimized TensorRT framework and show that inference is fast enough to run the control loop at >2 kHz frequencies. Our on-sky results demonstrate a successful closed-loop operation using a model calibrated with internal source data that delivers stable and robust correction under varying conditions. Performance analysis reveals that our smart PWFS achieves nearly the same Strehl ratio as the highly optimized modulated PWFS under favorable conditions on bright stars. Notably, we observe an improvement in performance on a fainter star under the influence of strong winds. These findings confirm the feasibility of using the PWFS in its unmodulated form and highlight its potential for next-generation instruments. Future efforts will focus on achieving even higher control loop frequencies (>3 kHz), optimizing the calibration procedures, and testing its performance on fainter stars, where more gain is expected for the unmodulated PWFS compared to its modulated counterpart.
Generative AI for Validating Physics Laws
Authors: Maria Nareklishvili, Nicholas Polson, Vadim Sokolov
Date: 2025-03-23 00:00:00
Tasks: counterfactual

We present generative artificial intelligence (AI) to empirically validate fundamental laws of physics, focusing on the Stefan-Boltzmann law linking stellar temperature and luminosity. Our approach simulates counterfactual luminosities under hypothetical temperature regimes for each individual star and iteratively refines the temperature-luminosity relationship in a deep learning architecture. We use Gaia DR3 data and find that, on average, temperature's effect on luminosity increases with stellar radius and decreases with absolute magnitude, consistent with theoretical predictions. By framing physics laws as causal problems, our method offers a novel, data-driven approach to refine theoretical understanding and inform evidence-based policy and practice.
Deep learning-based identification of precipitation clouds from all-sky camera data for observatory safety
Authors: Mohammad H. Zhoolideh Haghighi, Alireza Ghasrimanesh, Habib Khosroshahi
Date: 2025-03-24 00:00:00
Tasks: All

For monitoring the night sky conditions, wide-angle all-sky cameras are used in most astronomical observatories to monitor the sky cloudiness. In this manuscript, we apply a deep-learning approach for automating the identification of precipitation clouds in all-sky camera data as a cloud warning system. We construct our original training and test sets using the all-sky camera image archive of the Iranian National Observatory (INO). The training and test set images are labeled manually based on their potential rainfall and their distribution in the sky. We train our model on a set of roughly 2445 images taken by the INO all-sky camera through the deep learning method based on the EfficientNet network. Our model reaches an average accuracy of 99\% in determining the cloud rainfall's potential and an accuracy of 96\% for cloud coverage. To enable a comprehensive comparison and evaluate the performance of alternative architectures for the task, we additionally trained three models LeNet, DeiT, and AlexNet. This approach can be used for early warning of incoming dangerous clouds toward telescopes and harnesses the power of deep learning to automatically analyze vast amounts of all-sky camera data and accurately identify precipitation clouds formations. Our trained model can be deployed for real-time analysis, enabling the rapid identification of potential threats, and offering a scaleable solution that can improve our ability to safeguard telescopes and instruments in observatories. This is important now that numerous small and medium-sized telescopes are increasingly integrated with smart control systems to reduce manual operation.
Scaling Laws for Emulation of Stellar Spectra
Authors: Tomasz Różański, Yuan-Sen Ting
Date: 2025-03-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Astronomy

Neural network-based emulators for the inference of stellar parameters and elemental abundances represent an increasingly popular methodology in modern spectroscopic surveys. However, these approaches are often constrained by their emulation precision and domain transfer capabilities. Greater generalizability has previously been achieved only with significantly larger model architectures, as demonstrated by Transformer-based models in natural language processing. This observation aligns with neural scaling laws, where model performance predictably improves with increased model size, computational resources allocated to model training, and training data volume. In this study, we demonstrate that these scaling laws also apply to Transformer-based spectral emulators in astronomy. Building upon our previous work with TransformerPayne and incorporating Maximum Update Parametrization techniques from natural language models, we provide training guidelines for scaling models to achieve optimal performance. Our results show that within the explored parameter space, clear scaling relationships emerge. These findings suggest that optimal computational resource allocation requires balanced scaling. Specifically, given a tenfold increase in training compute, achieving an optimal seven-fold reduction in mean squared error necessitates an approximately 2.5-fold increase in dataset size and a 3.8-fold increase in model size. This study establishes a foundation for developing spectral foundational models with enhanced domain transfer capabilities.
Dynamically Learning to Integrate in Recurrent Neural Networks
Authors: Blake Bordelon, Jordan Cotler, Cengiz Pehlevan, Jacob A. Zavatone-Veth
Date: 2025-03-24 00:00:00

Learning to remember over long timescales is fundamentally challenging for recurrent neural networks (RNNs). While much prior work has explored why RNNs struggle to learn long timescales and how to mitigate this, we still lack a clear understanding of the dynamics involved when RNNs learn long timescales via gradient descent. Here we build a mathematical theory of the learning dynamics of linear RNNs trained to integrate white noise. We show that when the initial recurrent weights are small, the dynamics of learning are described by a low-dimensional system that tracks a single outlier eigenvalue of the recurrent weights. This reveals the precise manner in which the long timescale associated with white noise integration is learned. We extend our analyses to RNNs learning a damped oscillatory filter, and find rich dynamical equations for the evolution of a conjugate pair of outlier eigenvalues. Taken together, our analyses build a rich mathematical framework for studying dynamical learning problems salient for both machine learning and neuroscience.
Self-Organizing Graph Reasoning Evolves into a Critical State for Continuous Discovery Through Structural-Semantic Dynamics
Authors: Markus J. Buehler
Date: 2025-03-24 00:00:00

We report fundamental insights into how agentic graph reasoning systems spontaneously evolve toward a critical state that sustains continuous semantic discovery. By rigorously analyzing structural (Von Neumann graph entropy) and semantic (embedding) entropy, we identify a subtle yet robust regime in which semantic entropy persistently dominates over structural entropy. This interplay is quantified by a dimensionless Critical Discovery Parameter that stabilizes at a small negative value, indicating a consistent excess of semantic entropy. Empirically, we observe a stable fraction (12%) of "surprising" edges, links between semantically distant concepts, providing evidence of long-range or cross-domain connections that drive continuous innovation. Concomitantly, the system exhibits scale-free and small-world topological features, alongside a negative cross-correlation between structural and semantic measures, reinforcing the analogy to self-organized criticality. These results establish clear parallels with critical phenomena in physical, biological, and cognitive complex systems, revealing an entropy-based principle governing adaptability and continuous innovation. Crucially, semantic richness emerges as the underlying driver of sustained exploration, despite not being explicitly used by the reasoning process. Our findings provide interdisciplinary insights and practical strategies for engineering intelligent systems with intrinsic capacities for long-term discovery and adaptation, and offer insights into how model training strategies can be developed that reinforce critical discovery.