Tongxin Li

selected publications

1. SIGMETRICS

   Robustness and Consistency in Linear Quadratic Control with Untrusted Predictions

   Li, Tongxin, Yang, Ruixiao, Qu, Guannan, Shi, Guanya, Yu, Chenkai, Wierman, Adam, and Low, Steven

   Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems 2022

   Abs HTML

   We study the problem of learning-augmented predictive linear quadratic control. Our goal is to design a controller that balances consistency, which measures the competitive ratio when predictions are accurate, and robustness, which bounds the competitive ratio when predictions are inaccurate.

2. TSG

   Learning-based Predictive Control via Real-time Aggregate Flexibility

   Li, Tongxin, Sun, Bo, Chen, Yue, Ye, Zixin, Low, Steven H, and Wierman, Adam

   IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid 2021

   Abs HTML Slides

   Aggregators have emerged as crucial tools for the coordination of distributed, controllable loads. To be used effectively, an aggregator must be able to communicate the available flexibility of the loads they control, as known as the aggregate flexibility to a system operator. However, most of existing aggregate flexibility measures often are slow-timescale estimations and much less attention has been paid to real-time coordination between an aggregator and an operator. In this paper, we consider solving an online optimization in a closed-loop system and present a design of real-time aggregate flexibility feedback, termed the maximum entropy feedback (MEF). In addition to deriving analytic properties of the MEF, combining learning and control, we show that it can be approximated using reinforcement learning and used as a penalty term in a novel control algorithm – the penalized predictive control (PPC), which modifies vanilla model predictive control (MPC). The benefits of our scheme are (1). Efficient Communication. An operator running PPC does not need to know the exact states and constraints of the loads, but only the MEF. (2). Fast Computation. The PPC often has much less number of variables than an MPC formulation. (3). Lower Costs. We show that under certain regularity assumptions, the PPC is optimal. We illustrate the efficacy of the PPC using a dataset from an adaptive electric vehicle charging network and show that PPC outperforms classical MPC.

3. SIGMETRICS

   Information Aggregation for Constrained Online Control

   Li, Tongxin, Chen, Yue, Sun, Bo, Wierman, Adam, and Low, Steven H

   Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems 2021

   Abs HTML Slides

   This paper considers an online control problem involving two controllers. A central controller chooses an action from a feasible set that is determined by time-varying and coupling constraints, which depend on all past actions and states. The central controller’s goal is to minimize the cumulative cost; however, the controller has access to neither the feasible set nor the dynamics directly, which are determined by a remote local controller. Instead, the central controller receives only an aggregate summary of the feasibility information from the local controller, which does not know the system costs. We show that it is possible for an online algorithm using feasibility information to nearly match the dynamic regret of an online algorithm using perfect information whenever the feasible sets satisfy a causal invariance criterion and there is a sufficiently large prediction window size. To do so, we use a form of feasibility aggregation based on entropic maximization in combination with a novel online algorithm, named Penalized Predictive Control (PPC) and demonstrate that aggregated information can be efficiently learned using reinforcement learning algorithms. The effectiveness of our approach for closed-loop coordination between central and local controllers is validated via an electric vehicle charging application in power systems.

4. TSIPN

   Learning graphs from linear measurements: Fundamental trade-offs and applications

   Li, Tongxin, Werner, Lucien, and Low, Steven H

   IEEE Transactions on Signal and Information Processing over Networks 2020

   Abs HTML

   We consider a specific graph learning task: reconstructing a symmetric matrix that represents an underlying graph using linear measurements. We present a sparsity characterization for distributions of random graphs (that are allowed to contain high-degree nodes), based on which we study fundamental trade-offs between the number of measurements, the complexity of the graph class, and the probability of error. We first derive a necessary condition on the number of measurements. Then, by considering a three-stage recovery scheme, we give a sufficient condition for recovery. Furthermore, assuming the measurements are Gaussian IID, we prove upper and lower bounds on the (worst-case) sample complexity for both noisy and noiseless recovery. In the special cases of the uniform distribution on trees with n nodes and the Erdős-Rényi (n,p) class, the fundamental trade-offs are tight up to multiplicative factors with noiseless measurements. In addition, for practical applications, we design and implement a polynomial-time (in n) algorithm based on the three-stage recovery scheme. Experiments show that the heuristic algorithm outperforms basis pursuit on star graphs. We apply the heuristic algorithm to learn admittance matrices in electric grids. Simulations for several canonical graph classes and IEEE power system test cases demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm for parameter reconstruction.