Quadratic programming method

Fig. 6.7 Comparison of the maximum of the neural network approximation of the ODHE ethylene yield obtained in 10 runs of the genetic algorithm with a population size 60, and the global maximum obtained with a sequential quadratic programming method run for 15 different starting points.

C.L. Chen, Ph.D. thesis, A class of successive quadratic programming methods for flowsheet optimization, University of London, 1988. 

Chen, C.L., A Class of Successive Quadratic Programming Methods for Flowsheet Optimisation. PhD Thesis, (Imperial College, London, 1988). 

Stoer, J. (1985), Principals of Sequential Quadratic Programming Methods for Solving Nonlinear Programs, in Computational Mathematical Programming, K. Schittkowski, Ed., Springer, Berlin. 

Quadratic programming is discussed in Chapter 11. The quadratic programming methods are implemented by handling the numerical evaluation of Hessian in a novel way. Reduced gradient and gradient projection are described as conventional methods they are then compared to the novel proposed approach based on the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker direction projection method. It represents the basic core for the development of successive quadratic programming (SQP) methods. 

Non-linear programming technique (NLP) is used to solve the problems resulting from syntheses optimisation. This NLP approach involves transforming the general optimal control problem, which is of infinite dimension (the control variables are time-dependant), into a finite dimensional NLP problem by the means of control vector parameterisation. According to this parameterisation technique, the control variables are restricted to a predefined form of temporal variation which is often referred to as a basis function Lagrange polynoms (piecewise constant, piecewise linear) or exponential based function. A successive quadratic programming method is then applied to solve the resultant NLP. 

Successive Quadratic Programming (SQP) The above approach to finding the optimum is called a feasible path method, as it attempts at all times to remain feasible with respect to the equahty and inequahty constraints as it moves to the optimum. A quite different method exists called the Successive Quadratic Programming (SQP) method, which only requires one be feasible at the final solution. Tests that compare the GRG and SQP methods generaUy favor the SQP method so it has the reputation of being one of the best methods known for nonlinear optimization for the type of problems considered here. 

This linear quadratic program will have a unique solution if B i) is kept positive definite. Efncient solution methods exist for solving it (Refs. 119 and 123). 

One important class of nonlinear programming techniques is called quadratic programming (QP), where the objective function is quadratic and the constraints are hnear. While the solution is iterative, it can be obtained qmckly as in linear programming. This is the basis for the newest type of constrained multivariable control algorithms called model predic tive control. The dominant method used in the refining industiy utilizes the solution of a QP and is called dynamic matrix con-... 

An alternative procedure is the dynamic programming method of Bellman (1957) which is based on the principle of optimality and the imbedding approach. The principle of optimality yields the Hamilton-Jacobi partial differential equation, whose solution results in an optimal control policy. Euler-Lagrange and Pontrya-gin s equations are applicable to systems with non-linear, time-varying state equations and non-quadratic, time varying performance criteria. The Hamilton-Jacobi equation is usually solved for the important and special case of the linear time-invariant plant with quadratic performance criterion (called the performance index), which takes the form of the matrix Riccati (1724) equation. This produces an optimal control law as a linear function of the state vector components which is always stable, providing the system is controllable. 

Another method for solving nonlinear programming problems is based on quadratic programming (QP)1. Quadratic programming is an optimization procedure that minimizes a quadratic objective function subject to linear inequality or equality (or both types) of constraints. For example, a quadratic function of two variables x and X2 would be of the general form ... 

Problem 4.1 is nonlinear if one or more of the functions/, gv...,gm are nonlinear. It is unconstrained if there are no constraint functions g, and no bounds on the jc,., and it is bound-constrained if only the xt are bounded. In linearly constrained problems all constraint functions g, are linear, and the objective/is nonlinear. There are special NLP algorithms and software for unconstrained and bound-constrained problems, and we describe these in Chapters 6 and 8. Methods and software for solving constrained NLPs use many ideas from the unconstrained case. Most modem software can handle nonlinear constraints, and is especially efficient on linearly constrained problems. A linearly constrained problem with a quadratic objective is called a quadratic program (QP). Special methods exist for solving QPs, and these iare often faster than general purpose optimization procedures. 

LP software includes two related but fundamentally different kinds of programs. The first is solver software, which takes data specifying an LP or MILP as input, solves it, and returns the results. Solver software may contain one or more algorithms (simplex and interior point LP solvers and branch-and-bound methods for MILPs, which call an LP solver many times). Some LP solvers also include facilities for solving some types of nonlinear problems, usually quadratic programming problems (quadratic objective function, linear constraints see Section 8.3), or separable nonlinear problems, in which the objective or some constraint functions are a sum of nonlinear functions, each of a single variable, such as... 

Note that there are n + m equations in the n + m unknowns x and A. In Section 8.6 we describe an important class of NLP algorithms called successive quadratic programming (SQP), which solve (8.17)—(8.18) by a variant of Newton s method. 

Successive quadratic programming (SQP) methods solve a sequence of quadratic programming approximations to a nonlinear programming problem. Quadratic programs (QPs) have a quadratic objective function and linear constraints, and there exist efficient procedures for solving them see Section 8.3. As in SLP, the linear constraints are linearizations of the actual constraints about the selected point. The objective is a quadratic approximation to the Lagrangian function, and the algorithm is simply Newton s method applied to the KTC of the problem. 

Vassiliadis, V. S. and S. A. Brooks. Application of the Modified Barrier Method in Large-Scale Quadratic Programming Problems. Comp Chem Engin 22 1197-1205 (1998). 

The minimization of the quadratic performance index in Equation (16.2), subject to the constraints in Equations (16.5-16.7) and the step response model such as Equation (16.1), forms a standard quadratic programming (QP) problem, described in Chapter 8. If the quadratic terms in Equation (16.2) are replaced by linear terms, a linear programming program (LP) problem results that can also be solved using standard methods. The MPC formulation for SISO control problems described earlier can easily be extended to MIMO problems and to other types of models and objective functions (Lee et al., 1994). Tuning the controller is carried out by adjusting the following parameters ... 

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