Optimization
Efficient solutions to large-scale problems.
Much of MERL's research activity involves formulating scientific and engineering problems as optimizations, which can be solved in an efficient way. We have developed fundamental algorithms to better solve classic problems, such as quadratic programs and minimum-cost paths. Our work also involves developing theoretical bounds to understand performance limits.
Quick Links
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Researchers
Stefano
Di Cairano
Arvind
Raghunathan
Toshiaki
Koike-Akino
Daniel N.
Nikovski
Christopher R.
Laughman
Yebin
Wang
Philip V.
Orlik
Abraham P.
Vinod
Ye
Wang
Kieran
Parsons
Scott A.
Bortoff
Avishai
Weiss
Petros T.
Boufounos
Matthew
Brand
Hassan
Mansour
Jianlin
Guo
Pu
(Perry)
Wang
Vedang M.
Deshpande
Hongbo
Sun
Dehong
Liu
Hongtao
Qiao
Bingnan
Wang
Purnanand
Elango
Chungwei
Lin
Yanting
Ma
Gordon
Wichern
Saviz
Mowlavi
William S.
Yerazunis
Nobuyuki
Yoshikawa
Jinyun
Zhang
Abraham
Goldsmith
Shingo
Kobori
Jordan
Leung
Pedro
Miraldo
Joshua
Rapp
Alexander
Schperberg
Anoop
Cherian
Radu
Corcodel
Anna
Deza
Kenji
Inomata
Jing
Liu
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Awards
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AWARD Mitsubishi Electric and MERL work recognized with IEEJ Distinguished Paper Award Date: June 1, 2025
Awarded to: Arvind Raghunathan, Daniel Nikovski
MERL Contacts: Daniel N. Nikovski; Arvind Raghunathan
Research Areas: Electric Systems, OptimizationBrief- A publication jointly authored by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation's Advanced Technology Center (ATC) and MERL researchers has been recognized with the 2025 IEEJ Distinguished Paper Award by the Institute of Electrical Engineers Japan. The paper titled "Power Band Model Based on Flow Network and Weekly Unit Commitment Problem Considering Reserve Market" published in the IEEJ Transactions on Power and Energy presents a novel Unit Commitment formulation for scheduling the generator operations. Arvind Raghunathan and Daniel Nikovksi were co-authors on this publication.
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AWARD Mitsubishi Electric Team Wins Awards at GalFer Contest Date: June 23, 2025
Awarded to: Bingnan Wang, Tatsuya Yamamoto, Yusuke Sakamoto, Siyuan Sun, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, and Ye Wang
MERL Contacts: Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Bingnan Wang; Ye Wang
Research Areas: Machine Learning, Multi-Physical Modeling, OptimizationBrief- The MELSUR (Mitsubishi Electric SURrogate) team, consisting of a group of MERL and Mitsubishi Electric researchers, ranked first in two out of three categories in the GalFer Contest.
The GalFer (Galileo Ferraris) contest aims to compare the accuracy and efficiency of data-driven methodologies for the multi-physics simulation of traction electric machines. A total of 26 teams worldwide participated in the contest, which consists of three categories. The MELSUR team, including MERL staff Bingnan Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, MERL intern Siyuan Sun, Mitsubishi Electric researchers Tatsuya Yamamoto and Yusuke Sakamoto, ranked first for the category of "Novelty" and "Interpolation". The results were announced during an award ceremony at the COMPUMAG 2025 conference in Naples, Italy.
- The MELSUR (Mitsubishi Electric SURrogate) team, consisting of a group of MERL and Mitsubishi Electric researchers, ranked first in two out of three categories in the GalFer Contest.
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AWARD MERL Researchers Win Best Workshop Poster Award at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Date: June 2, 2023
Awarded to: Yuki Shirai, Devesh Jha, Arvind Raghunathan and Dennis Hong
MERL Contact: Arvind Raghunathan
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Optimization, RoboticsBrief- MERL's paper titled: "Closed-Loop Tactile Controller for Tool Manipulation" Won the Best Poster Award in the workshop on "Embracing contacts : Making robots physically interact with our world". First author and MERL intern, Yuki Shirai, was presented with the award at a ceremony held at ICRA in London. MERL researchers Devesh Jha, Principal Research Scientist, and Arvind Raghunathan, Senior Principal Research Scientist and Senior Team Leader as well as Prof. Dennis Hong of University of California, Los Angeles are also coauthors.
The paper presents a technique to manipulate an object using a tool in a closed-loop fashion using vision-based tactile sensors. More information about the workshop and the various speakers can be found here https://sites.google.com/view/icra2023embracingcontacts/home.
- MERL's paper titled: "Closed-Loop Tactile Controller for Tool Manipulation" Won the Best Poster Award in the workshop on "Embracing contacts : Making robots physically interact with our world". First author and MERL intern, Yuki Shirai, was presented with the award at a ceremony held at ICRA in London. MERL researchers Devesh Jha, Principal Research Scientist, and Arvind Raghunathan, Senior Principal Research Scientist and Senior Team Leader as well as Prof. Dennis Hong of University of California, Los Angeles are also coauthors.
See All Awards for Optimization -
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News & Events
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NEWS MERL researchers present 8 papers at ACC 2026 Date: May 26, 2026 - May 29, 2026
Where: New Orleans, USA
MERL Contacts: Scott A. Bortoff; Vedang M. Deshpande; Stefano Di Cairano; Christopher R. Laughman; Jordan Leung; Hongtao Qiao; Zhaolin Ren; Abraham P. Vinod; Yebin Wang
Research Areas: Control, Dynamical Systems, Optimization, RoboticsBrief- MERL researchers presented 8 papers at the recently concluded American Control Conference (ACC) 2026 in New Orleans, USA. The papers covered a wide range of topics including robust controllable set computation, vapor compression cycle calibration, task-reasoning LLM agents, Minkowski-cost stable MPC, polynomial chaos approximation, invariant-set motion planning, heat-pump MPC architectures, and relaxed barrier-function MPC. Additionally, Zhaolin Ren was an invited speaker at Multi-Agent Dynamic Games workshop, and Abraham Vinod served as a panelist at the Professional Development and Career Advice for Young Professionals session.
As a sponsor of the conference, MERL maintained a booth for open discussions with researchers and students, and hosted a special session to discuss highlights of MERL research and work philosophy.
- MERL researchers presented 8 papers at the recently concluded American Control Conference (ACC) 2026 in New Orleans, USA. The papers covered a wide range of topics including robust controllable set computation, vapor compression cycle calibration, task-reasoning LLM agents, Minkowski-cost stable MPC, polynomial chaos approximation, invariant-set motion planning, heat-pump MPC architectures, and relaxed barrier-function MPC. Additionally, Zhaolin Ren was an invited speaker at Multi-Agent Dynamic Games workshop, and Abraham Vinod served as a panelist at the Professional Development and Career Advice for Young Professionals session.
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NEWS MERL Presents Set-Based Reachability Research for Spacecraft Guidance at NASA Johnson Space Center Date: April 15, 2026 - April 16, 2026
Where: NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston
MERL Contacts: Abraham P. Vinod; Avishai Weiss
Research Areas: Control, Dynamical Systems, Optimization, RoboticsBrief- MERL researchers Avishai Weiss and Abraham Vinod visited NASA Johnson Space Center to present recent advances in set-based reachability analysis for spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control, with an emphasis on powered descent guidance for lunar landing. They delivered an invited talk titled “Safe and Optimal Control for Spacecraft GN&C using Set-Based Reachability Analysis.”
The presentation introduced MERL’s recently developed set-based computational techniques for safe, optimal, and robust spacecraft control, including methods that specialize the approach for computing maximum divert envelopes and enabling real-time landing footprint prediction for landers. The talk was attended by researchers from NASA and the University of Washington, and generated extensive technical discussion.
- MERL researchers Avishai Weiss and Abraham Vinod visited NASA Johnson Space Center to present recent advances in set-based reachability analysis for spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control, with an emphasis on powered descent guidance for lunar landing. They delivered an invited talk titled “Safe and Optimal Control for Spacecraft GN&C using Set-Based Reachability Analysis.”
See All News & Events for Optimization -
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Research Highlights
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Internships
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MS0098: Internship - Control and Estimation for Large-Scale Thermofluid Systems
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CA0153: Internship - High-Fidelity Visualization and Simulation for Space Applications
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MS0259: Internship - Multi-Fidelity Dynamic Models for Energy Systems
See All Internships for Optimization -
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Openings
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MS0268: Research Scientist - Multiphysical Systems
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SA0297: Postdoctoral Research Fellow - AI for Science
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CI0177: Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Agentic AI
See All Openings at MERL -
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Recent Publications
- , "Nonlinear Magnetic and Structural Topology Optimization of SynRM Rotors", Biennial IEEE Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation (CEFC), June 2026.BibTeX TR2026-079 PDF
- @inproceedings{Das2026jun,
- author = {Das, Ghanendra and Wang, Bingnan and Lin, Chungwei},
- title = {{Nonlinear Magnetic and Structural Topology Optimization of SynRM Rotors}},
- booktitle = {Biennial IEEE Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation (CEFC)},
- year = 2026,
- month = jun,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-079}
- }
- , "Data-driven Spatial Classification using Multi-Arm Bandits for Monitoring with Energy-Constrained Mobile Robots", IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, June 2026.BibTeX TR2026-078 PDF Video
- @article{Lin2026jun,
- author = {Lin, Xiaoshan and Nayak, Siddharth and {Di Cairano}, Stefano and Vinod, Abraham P.},
- title = {{Data-driven Spatial Classification using Multi-Arm Bandits for Monitoring with Energy-Constrained Mobile Robots}},
- journal = {IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology},
- year = 2026,
- month = jun,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-078}
- }
- , "GPU-Accelerated Continuous-Time Successive Convexification for Contact-Implicit Legged Locomotion", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), June 2026.BibTeX TR2026-068 PDF
- @inproceedings{Buckner2026jun,
- author = {Buckner, Samuel and Elango, Purnanand},
- title = {{GPU-Accelerated Continuous-Time Successive Convexification for Contact-Implicit Legged Locomotion}},
- booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
- year = 2026,
- month = jun,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-068}
- }
- , "A Comparison of MPC Architectures for a Heat Pump", American Control Conference (ACC), May 2026.BibTeX TR2026-060 PDF
- @inproceedings{Bortoff2026may,
- author = {Bortoff, Scott A. and Quah, Titus and Rawlings, James B.},
- title = {{A Comparison of MPC Architectures for a Heat Pump}},
- booktitle = {American Control Conference (ACC)},
- year = 2026,
- month = may,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-060}
- }
- , "A set-based approach for stable MPC with Minkowski cost functions", American Control Conference (ACC), May 2026.BibTeX TR2026-062 PDF
- @inproceedings{Leung2026may,
- author = {Leung, Jordan and Vinod, Abraham P.},
- title = {{A set-based approach for stable MPC with Minkowski cost functions}},
- booktitle = {American Control Conference (ACC)},
- year = 2026,
- month = may,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-062}
- }
- , "Robust Controllable Set Computation using Constrained Convex Generators", American Control Conference (ACC), May 2026.BibTeX TR2026-063 PDF
- @inproceedings{Silvestre2026may,
- author = {Silvestre, Daniel and Vinod, Abraham P.},
- title = {{Robust Controllable Set Computation using Constrained Convex Generators}},
- booktitle = {American Control Conference (ACC)},
- year = 2026,
- month = may,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-063}
- }
- , "Sequential Model Calibration of Vapor Compression Cycles using Approximate Bayesian Computation", American Control Conference (ACC), May 2026.BibTeX TR2026-061 PDF
- @inproceedings{Zinage2026may,
- author = {Zinage, Shrenik and Dixit, Vaibhav and Chakrabarty, Ankush and Qiao, Hongtao and Laughman, Christopher R. and Bilionis, Ilias and Deshpande, Vedang M.},
- title = {{Sequential Model Calibration of Vapor Compression Cycles using Approximate Bayesian Computation}},
- booktitle = {American Control Conference (ACC)},
- year = 2026,
- month = may,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-061}
- }
- , "ProxiCBO: A Consensus-based Method for Composite Optimization", IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), May 2026.BibTeX TR2026-041 PDF
- @inproceedings{Zhang2026may,
- author = {Zhang, Haoyu and Ma, Yanting and Kitichotkul, Ruangrawee and Rapp, Joshua and Boufounos, Petros T.},
- title = {{ProxiCBO: A Consensus-based Method for Composite Optimization}},
- booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP)},
- year = 2026,
- month = may,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-041}
- }
- , "Nonlinear Magnetic and Structural Topology Optimization of SynRM Rotors", Biennial IEEE Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation (CEFC), June 2026.
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Videos
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Software & Data Downloads
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SAmple Consensus for Adaptive Graduated Non-Convexity -
Optimal Recursive McCormick Linearization of MultiLinear Programs -
Convex sets in Python -
Meta-Learning State Space Models -
Python-based Robotic Control & Optimization Package -
Template Embeddings for Adiabatic Quantum Computation -
Quasi-Newton Trust Region Policy Optimization -
Convergent Inverse Scattering using Optimization and Regularization
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