It is a survey on recent results in constructive sparse approximation. Three directions are discussed here: (1) Lebesgue-type inequalities for greedy algorithms with respect to a special class of dictionaries, (2) constructive sparse approximation with respect to the trigonometric system, (3) sparse approximation with respect to dictionaries with tensor product structure. In all three cases constructive ways are provided for sparse approximation. The technique used is based on fundamental results from the theory of greedy approximation. In particular, results in the direction (1) are based on deep methods developed recently in compressed sensing. We present some of these results with detailed proofs.

Chebyshev Greedy Algorithm is a generalization of the well known Orthogonal Matching Pursuit defined in a Hilbert space to the case of Banach spaces. We apply this algorithm for constructing sparse approximate solutions (with respect to a given dictionary) to convex optimization problems. Rate of convergence results in a style of the Lebesgue-type inequalities are proved.

We study sparse approximation by greedy algorithms. We prove the Lebesgue-type inequalities for the Weak Chebyshev Greedy Algorithm (WCGA), a generalization of the Weak Orthogonal Matching Pursuit to the case of a Banach space. The main novelty of these results is a Banach space setting instead of a Hilbert space setting. The results are proved for redundant dictionaries satisfying certain conditions. Then we apply these general results to the case of bases. In particular, we prove that the WCGA provides almost optimal sparse approximation for the trigonometric system in $L_p$, $2\le p<\infty$.