Iteration-complexity analysis of a generalized alternating direction method of multipliers

This paper analyzes the iteration-complexity of a generalized alternating direction method of multipliers (G-ADMM) for solving separable linearly constrained convex optimization problems. This ADMM variant, first proposed by Bertsekas and Eckstein, introduces a relaxation parameter α into the second ADMM subproblem in order to improve its computational performance. It is shown that, for a given tolerance ε > 0 , the G-ADMM with α ∈ ( 0 , 2 ) provides, in at most O ( 1 / ε 2 ) iterations, an approximate solution of the Lagrangian system associated to the optimization problem under consideration. It is further demonstrated that, in at most O ( 1 / ε ) iterations, an approximate solution of the Lagrangian system can be obtained by means of an ergodic sequence associated to a sequence generated by the G-ADMM with α ∈ ( 0 , 2 ] . Our approach consists of interpreting the G-ADMM as an instance of a hybrid proximal extragradient framework with some special properties. Some preliminary numerical experiments are reported in order to confirm that the use of α > 1 can lead to a better numerical performance than α = 1 (which corresponds to the standard ADMM).