Many industrial problems can be naturally formulated using Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP). Motivated by the demand for Open-Source solvers for real-world MINLP problems, we have developed a spatial Branch-and-Bound software package named COUENNE (Convex Over- and Under-ENvelopes for Nonlinear Estimation). In this paper, we present the structure of couenne and discuss in detail our work on two of its components: bounds tightening and branching strategies. We then present experimental results on a set of MINLP instances including some industrial applications. We also compare the performance of couenne with a state-of-the-art solver for nonconvex MINLPs.
Citation
IBM Research Report RC24620