ECE 5454 - Optimization Techniques for Electrical and Computer Engineering (3C)

Convex optimization theory and algorithms and their application to electrical and computer engineering. Sparse optimization methods, Eigen-decomposition techniques, the expectation-maximization algorithms, stochastic optimization techniques, and special techniques relevant to large-scale optimization.

Optimization theory and algorithms play a key role in a wide range of electrical and computer engineering problems. The need for mastering the advanced optimization techniques is even more pressing with the coming of the big data era. Optimization formulations and methods are proving to be vital in designing algorithms to extract essential knowledge from huge volumes of data. This course will go beyond the conventional convex optimization techniques and cover recent developments driven by the big data analysis, with applications tailored to ECE students. The topics in this course are chosen to provide students with a unified framework to comprehend the optimization problems in electrical and computer engineering, especially in machine learning. This course will give students a solid foundation in the general concepts of optimization theory, equip students with an arsenal of techniques to solve real problems, and pave the way for students to develop new optimization techniques.