TU1.R4.3

Non-Convex Robust Hypothesis Testing using Sinkhorn Uncertainty Sets

Jie Wang, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States; Rui Gao, University of Texas at Austin, United States; Yao Xie, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States

Session:
Hypothesis Testing 1

Track:
11: Information Theory and Statistics

Location:
Omikron II

Presentation Time:
Tue, 9 Jul, 10:25 - 10:45

Session Chair:
Venugopal Veeravalli, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract
We present a new framework to address the non-convex robust hypothesis testing problem, wherein the goal is to seek the optimal detector that minimizes the maximum of worst-case type-I and type-II risk functions. The distributional uncertainty sets are constructed to center around the empirical distribution derived from samples based on Sinkhorn discrepancy. Given that the objective involves non-convex, non-smooth probabilistic functions that are often intractable to optimize, existing methods resort to approximations rather than exact solutions. To tackle the challenge, we introduce an exact mixed-integer exponential conic reformulation of the problem, which can be solved into a global optimum with a moderate amount of input data. Subsequently, we propose a convex approximation, demonstrating its superiority over current state-of-the-art methodologies in literature. Furthermore, we establish connections between robust hypothesis testing and regularized formulations of non-robust risk functions, offering insightful interpretations.
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