A Globally Convergent Stabilized Sequential Quadratic Programming Method
by Philip E. Gill, Daniel P. Robinson
Abstract:
Sequential quadratic programming (SQP) methods are a popular class of
methods for nonlinearly constrained optimization. They are particularly
effective for solving a sequence of related problems, such as those arising
in mixed-integer nonlinear programming and the optimization of functions
subject to differential equation constraints.
Recently, there has been considerable interest in the formulation of
stabilized SQP methods, which are specifically designed to handle
degenerate optimization problems. Existing stabilized SQP methods are
essentially local, in the sense that both the formulation and analysis
focus on a neighborhood of a solution. We present the formulation and
analysis of a new SQP method that has favorable global convergence
properties yet is equivalent to a variant of the conventional stabilized
SQP method in the neighborhood of a solution. The method is based on the
combination of a primal-dual generalized augmented Lagrangian merit
function with a flexible line search to obtain a sequence of
improving estimates of the solution. An important feature of the method is
that the quadratic programming (QP) subproblem is defined using the exact
Hessian of the Lagrangian, yet has a unique bounded solution. This gives
the potential for fast convergence in the neighborhood of a solution.
Additional benefits of the method include: (i) each QP subproblem is
regularized; (ii) the QP subproblem always has a known feasible point;
and (iii) a projected gradient method may be used to identify the QP active
set when far from the solution.