On Properties of Univariate Max Functions at Local Maximizers

More than three decades ago, Boyd and Balakrishnan established a regularity result for the two-norm of a transfer function at maximizers. Their result extends easily to the statement that the maximum eigenvalue of a univariate real analytic Hermitian matrix family is twice continuously differentiable, with Lipschitz second derivative, at all local maximizers, a property that … Read more

A Comparison of Nonsmooth, Nonconvex, Constrained Optimization Solvers for the Design of Time-Delay Compensators

We present a detailed set of performance comparisons of two state-of-the-art solvers for the application of designing time-delay compensators, an important problem in the field of robust control. Formulating such robust control mechanics as constrained optimization problems often involves objective and constraint functions that are both nonconvex and nonsmooth, both of which present significant challenges … Read more