IEEEGuo, BaiweiWang, YangJiang, YuningKamgarpour, MaryamFerrari-Trecate, Giancarlo2024-04-032024-04-032024-04-032023-01-0110.1109/CDC49753.2023.10384023https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/206791WOS:001166433800073To solve unmodeled optimization problems with hard constraints, this paper proposes a novel zeroth-order approach called Safe Zeroth-order Optimization using Linear Programs (SZO-LP). The SZO-LP method solves a linear program in each iteration to find a descent direction, followed by a step length determination. We prove that, under mild conditions, the iterates of SZO-LP have an accumulation point that is also the primal of a KKT pair. We then apply SZO-LP to solve an Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem on the IEEE 30-bus system. The results demonstrate that SZO-LP requires less computation time and samples compared to state-of-the-art approaches.TechnologyOptimal Power-FlowGlobal OptimizationSystemstext::conference output::conference proceedings::conference paper