In this paper the solution of nonlinear programming problems by a Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) trust-region algorithm is considered. The aim of the present work is to promote global convergence without the need to use a penalty function. Instead, a new concept of a "filter" is introduced which allows a step to be accepted if it reduces either the objective function or the constraint violation function. Numerical tests on a wide range of test problems are very encouraging and the new algorithm compares favourably with LANCELOT and an implementation of Sl 1 QP.

This paper considers the solution of Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) problems. Classical methods for the solution of MINLP problems decompose the problem by separating the nonlinear part from the integer part. This approach is largely due to the existence of packaged software for solving Nonlinear Programming (NLP) and Mixed Integer Linear Programming problems. In contrast, an integrated approach to solving MINLP problems is considered here. This new algorithm is based on branch-and-bound, but does not require the NLP problem at each node to be solved to optimality. Instead, branching is allowed after each iteration of the NLP solver. In this way, the nonlinear part of the MINLP problem is solved whilst searching the tree. The nonlinear solver that is considered in this paper is a Sequential Quadratic Programming solver. A numerical comparison of the new method with nonlinear branch-and-bound is presented and a factor of about 3 improvement over branch-and-bound is observed...

We compare and contrast a number of recent sequential quadratic programming (SQP) methods that have been proposed for the solution of large-scale nonlinear programming problems. Both line-search and trust-region approaches are considered, as are the implications of interior-point and quadratic programming methods.

Standard global convergence proofs are examined to determine why some algorithms perform better than other algorithms. We show that relaxing the conditions required to prove global convergence can improve an algorithm's performance. Further analysis indicates that minimizing an estimate of the distance to the minimum relaxes the convergence conditions in such a way as to improve an algorithm's convergence rate. A new line-search algorithm based on these ideas is presented that does not force a reduction in the objective function at each iteration, yet it allows the objective function to increase during an iteration only if this will result in faster convergence. Unlike the nonmonotone algorithms in the literature, these new functions dynamically adjust to account for changes between the influence of curvature and descent. The result is an optimal algorithm in the sense that an estimate of the distance to the minimum is minimized at each iteration. The algorithm is shown to be well defi...

For constrained nonsmooth optimization problems, continuously differentiable penalty functions and barrier functions are given. They are proved exact in the sense that under some nondegeneracy assumption, local optimizers of a nonlinear program are also optimizers of the associated penalty or barrier function. This is achieved by augmenting the dimension of the program by a variable that controls the regularization of the nonsmooth terms and the weight of the penalty or barrier terms.

Abstract. In this paper the solution of nonlinear programming problems by a Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) trust-region algorithm is considered. The aim of the present work is to promote global convergence without the need to use a penalty function. Instead, a new concept of a “filter ” is introduced which allows a step to be accepted if it reduces either the objective function or the constraint violation function. Numerical tests on a wide range of test problems are very encouraging and the new algorithm compares favourably with LANCELOT and an implementation of Sl1QP. Key words. nonlinear programming – SQP – filter – penalty function