High accuracy semidefinite programming bounds for kissing numbers

The kissing number in n-dimensional Euclidean space is the maximal number of non-overlapping unit spheres which simultaneously can touch a central unit sphere. Bachoc and Vallentin developed a method to find upper bounds for the kissing number based on semidefinite programming. This paper is a report on high accuracy calculations of these upper bounds for … Read more

An Interior-Point Algorithm for Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization with Inexact Step Computations

We present a line-search algorithm for large-scale continuous optimization. The algorithm is matrix-free in that it does not require the factorization of derivative matrices. Instead, it uses iterative linear system solvers. Inexact step computations are supported in order to save computational expense during each iteration. The algorithm is an interior-point approach derived from an inexact … Read more

An interior-point Lagrangian decomposition method for separable convex optimization

In this paper we propose a distributed algorithm for solving large-scale separable convex problems using Lagrangian dual decomposition and the interior-point framework. By adding self-concordant barrier terms to the ordinary Lagrangian we prove under mild assumptions that the corresponding family of augmented dual functions is self-concordant. This makes it possible to efficiently use the Newton … Read more

Application of a smoothing technique to decomposition in convex optimization

Dual decomposition is a powerful technique for deriving decomposition schemes for convex optimization problems with specific structure. Although the Augmented Lagrangian is computationally more stable than the ordinary Lagrangian, the \textit{prox-term} destroys the separability of the given problem. In this paper we use another approach to obtain a smooth Lagrangian, based on a smoothing technique … Read more

The Advanced Step NMPC Controller: Optimality, Stability and Robustness

Widespread application of dynamic optimization with fast optimization solvers leads to increased consideration of first-principles models for nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC). However, significant barriers to this optimization-based control strategy are feedback delays and consequent loss of performance and stability due to on-line computation. To overcome these barriers, recently proposed NMPC controllers based on nonlinear … Read more

A Fast Moving Horizon Estimation Algorithm Based on Nonlinear Programming Sensitivity

Moving Horizon Estimation (MHE) is an efficient optimization-based strategy for state estimation. Despite the attractiveness of this method, its application in industrial settings has been rather limited. This has been mainly due to the difficulty to solve, in real-time, the associated dynamic optimization problems. In this work, a fast MHE algorithm able to overcome this … Read more

Free Material Optimization with Fundamental Eigenfrequency Constraints.

The goal of this paper is to formulate and solve free material optimization problems with constraints on the smallest eigenfrequency of the optimal structure. A natural formulation of this problem as linear semidefinite program turns out to be numerically intractable. As an alternative, we propose a new approach, which is based on a nonlinear semidefinite … Read more

On the Optimal On-Line Management of Photovoltaic-Hydrogen Hybrid Energy Systems

We present an on-line management strategy for photovoltaic-hydrogen (PV-H2) hybrid energy systems. The strategy follows a receding-horizon principle and exploits solar radiation forecasts and statistics generated through a Gaussian process model. We demonstrate that incorporating forecast information can dramatically improve the reliability and economic performance of these promising energy production devices. ArticleDownload View PDF

Hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallel support vector machine training

Support Vector Machines are a powerful machine learning technology, but the training process involves a dense quadratic optimization problem and is computationally challenging. A parallel implementation of Support Vector Machine training has been developed, using a combination of MPI and OpenMP. Using an interior point method for the optimization and a reformulation that avoids the … Read more

Simultaneously solving seven optimization problems in relative scale

In this paper we develop and analyze an efficient algorithm which solves seven related optimization problems simultaneously, in relative scale. Each iteration of our method is very cheap, with main work spent on matrix-vector multiplication. We prove that if a certain sequence generated by the algorithm remains bounded, then the method must terminate in $O(1/\delta)$ … Read more