On the Performance of SQP Methods for Nonlinear Optimization

This paper concerns some practical issues associated with the formulation of sequential quadratic programming (SQP) methods for large-scale nonlinear optimization. SQP methods find an approximate solution of a sequence of quadratic programming (QP) subproblems in which a quadratic model of the objective function is minimized subject to the linearized constraints. Extensive numerical results are given … Read more

A second derivative SQP method: theoretical issues

Sequential quadratic programming (SQP) methods form a class of highly efficient algorithms for solving nonlinearly constrained optimization problems. Although second derivative information may often be calculated, there is little practical theory that justifies exact-Hessian SQP methods. In particular, the resulting quadratic programming (QP) subproblems are often nonconvex, and thus finding their global solutions may be … Read more

A SECOND DERIVATIVE SQP METHOD WITH IMPOSED DESCENT

Sequential quadratic programming (SQP) methods form a class of highly efficient algorithms for solving nonlinearly constrained optimization problems. Although second derivative information may often be calculated, there is little practical theory that justifies exact-Hessian SQP methods. In particular, the resulting quadratic programming (QP) subproblems are often nonconvex, and thus finding their global solutions may be … Read more

A Primal-Dual Augmented Lagrangian

Nonlinearly constrained optimization problems can be solved by minimizing a sequence of simpler unconstrained or linearly constrained subproblems. In this paper, we discuss the formulation of subproblems in which the objective is a primal-dual generalization of the Hestenes-Powell augmented Lagrangian function. This generalization has the crucial feature that it is minimized with respect to both … Read more

A globally convergent linearly constrained Lagrangian method for nonlinear optimization

For optimization problems with nonlinear constraints, linearly constrained Lagrangian (LCL) methods solve a sequence of subproblems of the form “minimize an augmented Lagrangian function subject to linearized constraints”. Such methods converge rapidly near a solution but may not be reliable from arbitrary starting points. The well known software package MINOS has proven effective on many … Read more