Christian Kirches Many optimal decision problems in scientific, engineering, and public sector applications involve both discrete decisions and nonlinear system dynamics that affect the quality of the final design or plan. These decision problems lead to mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problems that combine the combinatorial difficulty of optimizing over discrete variable sets with the challenges of handling … Read more
Logical implications appear in a number of important mixed-integer nonlinear optimal control problems (MIOCPs). Mathematical optimization offers a variety of different formulations that are equivalent for boolean variables, but result in different relaxations. In this article we give an overview over a variety of different modeling approaches, including outer versus inner convexification, generalized disjunctive programming, … Read more
We present a new tree-search algorithm for solving mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs). Rather than relying on computationally expensive nonlinear solves at every node of the branch-and-bound tree, our algorithm solves a quadratic approximation at every node. We show that the resulting algorithm retains global convergence properties for convex MINLPs, and we present numerical results on … Read more
We describe a set of extensions to the AMPL modeling language to conveniently model mixed-integer optimal control problems for ODE or DAE dynamic processes. These extensions are realized as AMPL user functions and suffixes and do not require intrusive changes to the AMPL language standard or implementation itself. We describe and provide TACO, a Toolkit … Read more
We address direct multiple shooting based algorithms for nonlinear model predictive control, with a focus on problems with long prediction horizons. We describe different efficient multiple shooting variants with a computational effort that is only linear in the horizon length. Proposed techniques comprise structure exploiting linear algebra on the one hand, and approximation of derivative … Read more
Combinatorial and logic constraints arising in a number of challenging optimization applications can be formulated as vanishing constraints. Quadratic programs with vanishing constraints (QPVCs) then arise as subproblems during the numerical solution of such problems using algorithms of the Sequential Quadratic Programming type. QPVCs are nonconvex problems violating standard constraint qualifications. In this paper, we … Read more
Parametric Active Set Methods (PASM) are a relatively new class of methods to solve convex Quadratic Programming (QP) problems. They are based on tracing the solution along a linear homotopy between a QP with known solution and the QP to be solved. We explicitly identify numerical challenges in PASM and develop strategies to meet these … Read more
We are interested in structures and efficient methods for mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLP) that arise from a first discretize, then optimize approach to time-dependent mixed-integer optimal control problems (MIOCPs). In this study we focus on combinatorial constraints, in particular on restrictions on the number of switches on a fixed time grid. We propose a novel … Read more
Quadratic programs obtained for optimal control problems of dynamic or discrete–time processes usually involve highly block structured Hessian and constraints matrices. Efficient numerical methods for the solution of such QPs have to respect and exploit this block structure. In interior point methods, this is elegantly achieved by the widespread availability of advanced sparse symmetric indefinite … Read more
In this contribution we address the efficient solution of optimal control problems of dynamic processes with many controls. Such problems arise, e.g., from the outer convexification of integer control decisions. We treat this optimal control problem class using the direct multiple shooting method to discretize the optimal control problem. The resulting nonlinear problems are solved … Read more