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At least 19 records

ALESQP: An Augmented Lagrangian Equality-Constrained SQP Method for Optimization with General Constraints

Here we present a new algorithm for infinite-dimensional optimization with general constraints, called ALESQP. In short, ALESQP is an augmented Lagrangian method that penalizes inequality constraints and solves equality-constrained nonlinear optimization subproblems at every iteration. The subproblems are solved using a matrix-free trust-region sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method that takes advantage of iterative, i.e., inexact linear solvers, and is suitable for large-scale applications. A key feature of ALESQP is a constraint decomposition strategy that allows it to exploit problem-specific variable scalings and inner products. We analyze convergence of ALESQP under different assumptions. We show that strong accumulation points are stationary. Consequently, in finite dimensions ALESQP converges to a stationary point. In infinite dimensions we establish that weak accumulation points are feasible in many practical situations. Under additional assumptions we show that weak accumulation points are stationary. We present several infinite-dimensional examples where ALESQP shows remarkable discretization-independent performance in all of its iterative components, requiring a modest number of iterations to meet constraint tolerances at the level of machine precision. Also, we demonstrate a fully matrix-free solution of an infinite-dimensional problem with nonlinear inequality constraints.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Nonnegative canonical tensor decomposition with linear constraints: nnCANDELINC

Abstract There is an emerging interest for tensor factorization applications in big‐data analytics and machine learning. To speed up the factorization of extra‐large datasets, organized in multidimensional arrays (also known as tensors), easy to compute compression‐based tensor representations, such as, Tucker and tensor train formats, are used to approximate the initial large‐tensor. Further, tensor factorization is used to extract latent features that can facilitate discoveries of new mechanisms and signatures hidden in the data, where the explainability of the latent features is of principal importance. Nonnegative tensor factorization extracts latent features that are naturally sparse and parts of the data, which makes them easily interpretable. However, to take into account available domain knowledge and subject matter expertise, often additional constraints need to be imposed, which lead us to canonical decomposition with linear constraints (CANDELINC), a canonical polyadic decomposition with rank deficient factors. In CANDELINC, Tucker compression is used as a preprocessing step, which lead to a larger residual error but to more explainable latent features. Here, we propose a nonnegative CANDELINC (nnCANDELINC) accomplished via a specific nonnegative Tucker decomposition; we refer to as minimal or canonical nonnegative Tucker. We derive several results required to understand the specificity of nnCANDELINC, focusing on the difficulties of preserving the nonnegative rank of a tensor to its Tucker core and comparing the real valued to nonnegative case. Finally, we demonstrate nnCANDELINC performance on synthetic and real‐world examples.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Application of singular value decomposition to structural dynamics systems with constraints

Singular value decomposition is used to construct a coordinate transformation for a linear dynamic system subject to linear, homogeneous constraint equations. The method is compared with two commonly used methods, namely classical Gaussian elimination and Walton-Steeves approach. Although the classical method requires fewer numerical operations, the singular value decomposition method is more accurate and convenient in eliminating the dependent coordinates. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the application of the method.

Juang, J.-N.↗

A Sparse and Low Rank Penalized Signal Decomposition Model with Constraints: Anomaly Detection in PV Systems

Recently, robust PCA has seen its wide application in various industries for its ability to perform the task of anomaly detection. The essence of robust PCA approach is to break down the signal into a low rank component and sparse component. In many applications, a simple breakdown of the signal without accounting for the signs of low rank components and sparse components would violate the physical constraints of the decomposed signal. In addition, often times, the signals in the real world collected for a long duration has smooth changes within a day and between days. As an example, the power signals collected in a photovoltaic (PV) system are cyclostationary, exhibiting these characteristics. Neglecting the smoothness of signals would result in miss detection of anomalous signals which are smooth within a day but non-smooth between days and vice versa. In this paper, we developed a signal decomposition approach for the purpose of anomaly detection based on the idea of low rank and sparse decomposition taking into consideration the signs of the decomposed low rank and sparse components and the within-day and between-day smooth changes in the original signals. The proposed unsupervised approach for fault detection eliminates the need for faulty samples required by other machine learning methods. It does not require the full I-V characteristics to work. Furthermore, there is no need for complex modelling of PV systems as in the case of power loss analysis. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate the ability of our proposed approach for detecting anomalies of different duration and severity in PV systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Chance-Constrained Guidance With Non-Convex Constraints

Missions to small bodies, such as comets or asteroids, require autonomous guidance for descent to these small bodies. Such guidance is made challenging by uncertainty in the position and velocity of the spacecraft, as well as the uncertainty in the gravitational field around the small body. In addition, the requirement to avoid collision with the asteroid represents a non-convex constraint that means finding the optimal guidance trajectory, in general, is intractable. In this innovation, a new approach is proposed for chance-constrained optimal guidance with non-convex constraints. Chance-constrained guidance takes into account uncertainty so that the probability of collision is below a specified threshold. In this approach, a new bounding method has been developed to obtain a set of decomposed chance constraints that is a sufficient condition of the original chance constraint. The decomposition of the chance constraint enables its efficient evaluation, as well as the application of the branch and bound method. Branch and bound enables non-convex problems to be solved efficiently to global optimality. Considering the problem of finite-horizon robust optimal control of dynamic systems under Gaussian-distributed stochastic uncertainty, with state and control constraints, a discrete-time, continuous-state linear dynamics model is assumed. Gaussian-distributed stochastic uncertainty is a more natural model for exogenous disturbances such as wind gusts and turbulence than the previously studied set-bounded models. However, with stochastic uncertainty, it is often impossible to guarantee that state constraints are satisfied, because there is typically a non-zero probability of having a disturbance that is large enough to push the state out of the feasible region. An effective framework to address robustness with stochastic uncertainty is optimization with chance constraints. These require that the probability of violating the state constraints (i.e., the probability of failure) is below a user-specified bound known as the risk bound. An example problem is to drive a car to a destination as fast as possible while limiting the probability of an accident to 10(exp -7). This framework allows users to trade conservatism against performance by choosing the risk bound. The more risk the user accepts, the better performance they can expect.

FROM↗

Aerodynamic Data Fusion Toward the Digital Twin Paradigm

This paper considers the fusion of two aerodynamic data sets originating from differing types of physical or computer experiments. This paper specifically addresses the fusion of 1) noisy and in-complete fields from wind-tunnel measurements and 2) deterministic but biased fields from numerical simulations. These two data sources are fused in order to estimate the true field that best matches measured quantities that serve as the ground truth. For example, two sources of pressure fields about an aircraft are fused based on measured forces and moments from a wind-tunnel experiment. A fundamental challenge in this problem is that the true field is unknown and cannot be estimated with 100% certainty. A Bayesian framework is employed to infer the true fields conditioned on measured quantities of interest; essentially a statistical correction to the data is performed. The fused data may then be used to construct more accurate surrogate models suitable for early stages of aerospace design. An extension of the proper orthogonal decomposition with constraints is also introduced to solve the same problem. In this work, both methods are demonstrated on fusing the pressure distributions for flow past the RAE2822 airfoil and the Common Research Model wing at transonic conditions. Comparison of both methods reveals that the Bayesian method is more robust when data are scarce and capable of also accounting for uncertainties in the data. Furthermore, given adequate data, the proper-orthogonal-decomposition-based and Bayesian approaches lead to surprisingly similar results.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Numerical difficulties associated with using equality constraints to achieve multi-level decomposition in structural optimization

There has been recent interest in multidisciplinary multilevel optimization applied to large engineering systems. The usual approach is to divide the system into a hierarchy of subsystems with ever increasing detail in the analysis focus. Equality constraints are usually placed on various design quantities at every successive level to ensure consistency between levels. In many previous applications these equality constraints were eliminated by reducing the number of design variables. In complex systems this may not be possible and these equality constraints may have to be retained in the optimization process. In this paper the impact of such a retention is examined for a simple portal frame problem. It is shown that the equality constraints introduce numerical difficulties, and that the numerical solution becomes very sensitive to optimization parameters for a wide range of optimization algorithms.

Thareja, R.↗

On correcting radial orbit errors for altimetric satellites using crossover analysis

A method is proposed for correcting radial orbit error in measurements of sea surface height using a satellite altimeter. Traditionally, the orbit error is modeled in terms of a Fourier series with the Fourier coefficients determined by minimizing the residual crossover difference in a least-squares sense. In this method an a priori constraint must be imposed to obtain a unique solution. It is shown that by using singular value decomposition, no such constraint is needed. This proposed method leaves the geographically dependent errors unchanged and makes only those corrections warranted by the information contained in crossover differences. Thus, the resultant ocean topography is free from any undue distortion which might be incurred by an a priori constraint. It is suggested that the method is useful for application to high-accuracy altimetric mission, because the orbit error can be reduced without compromising the accuracy of the measured mean ocean topography.

Fu, Lee-Lueng↗

Multidisciplinary Optimization Methods for Aircraft Preliminary Design

This paper describes a research program aimed at improved methods for multidisciplinary design and optimization of large-scale aeronautical systems. The research involves new approaches to system decomposition, interdisciplinary communication, and methods of exploiting coarse-grained parallelism for analysis and optimization. A new architecture, that involves a tight coupling between optimization and analysis, is intended to improve efficiency while simplifying the structure of multidisciplinary, computation-intensive design problems involving many analysis disciplines and perhaps hundreds of design variables. Work in two areas is described here: system decomposition using compatibility constraints to simplify the analysis structure and take advantage of coarse-grained parallelism; and collaborative optimization, a decomposition of the optimization process to permit parallel design and to simplify interdisciplinary communication requirements.

Kroo, Ilan↗

Forcing function modeling for flow induced vibration

The fundamental forcing function unsteady aerodynamics for application to turbomachine blade row forced response are considered, accomplished through a series of experiments performed in a rotating annular cascade and a research axial flow turbine. In particular, the unsteady periodic flowfields downstream of rotating rows of perforated plates, airfoils and turbine blade rows are measured with a cross hot-wire and an unsteady total pressure probe. The unsteady velocity and static pressure fields were then analyzed harmonically and split into vortical and potential gusts, accomplished by developing a gust splitting analysis which includes both gust unsteady static pressure and velocity data. The perforated plate gusts closely were found to be linear theory vortical gusts, satisfying the vortical gust constraints. The airfoil and turbine blade row generated velocity perturbations did not satisfy the vortical gust constraints. However, the decomposition of the unsteady flow field separated the data into a propagating vortical component which satisfied these vortical gust constraints and a decaying potential component.

Fleeter, Sanford↗

New evidence favoring multilevel decomposition and optimization

The issue of the utility of multilevel decomposition and optimization remains controversial. To date, only the structural optimization community has actively developed and promoted multilevel optimization techniques. However, even this community acknowledges that multilevel optimization is ideally suited for a rather limited set of problems. It is warned that decomposition typically requires eliminating local variables by using global variables and that this in turn causes ill-conditioning of the multilevel optimization by adding equality constraints. The purpose is to suggest a new multilevel optimization technique. This technique uses behavior variables, in addition to design variables and constraints, to decompose the problem. The new technique removes the need for equality constraints, simplifies the decomposition of the design problem, simplifies the programming task, and improves the convergence speed of multilevel optimization compared to conventional optimization.

Padula, Sharon L.↗

Parallelized POD-based suboptimal economic model predictive control of a state-constrained Boussinesq approximation

Motivated by an energy efficient building application, we want to optimize a quadratic cost functional subject to the Boussinesq approximation of the Navier-Stokes equations and to bilateral state and control constraints. Since the computation of such an optimal solution is numerically costly, we design an efficient strategy to compute a sub-optimal (but applicationally acceptable) solution with significantly reduced computational effort. We employ an economic Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy to obtain a feedback control. The MPC sub-problems are based on a linear-quadratic optimal control problem subjected to mixed control and state constraints and a convection-diffusion equation, reduced with proper orthogonal decomposition. Finally, to solve each sub-problem, we apply a primal-dual active set strategy. The method can be fully parallelized, which enables the solution of large problems with real-world parameters.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Disjunctive linear separation conditions and mixed-integer formulations for aircraft conflict resolution

In this paper, we address the aircraft conflict resolution problem in air traffic control. We introduce new mixed-integer programming formulations for aircraft conflict resolution with speed, heading and altitude control which are based on disjunctive linear separation conditions. We first examine the two-dimensional aircraft conflict resolution problem with speed and heading control represented as continuous decision variables. We show that the proposed disjunctive linear separation conditions are equivalent to the classical nonlinear conditions for aircraft separation. Further, we characterise conflict-free trajectories based on aircraft velocity bounds and propose a simple pre-processing algorithm to identify aircraft pairs which are either always conflict-free, or which cannot be separated using speed and heading control only. We then incorporate altitude control and propose a lexicographic optimisation formulation that aims to minimise the number of flight level changes before resolving outstanding conflicts via two-dimensional velocity control. The proposed mixed-integer programming formulations are nonconvex, and we propose convex relaxations, decomposition methods and constraint generation algorithms to solve the two-dimensional and lexicographic optimisation formulations to guaranteed optimality. Numerical experiments on four types of conflict resolution benchmarking instances are conducted to test the performance of the proposed mixed-integer formulations. Further, the proposed method is compared against two benchmarks based on state-of-the-art approaches for the aircraft conflict resolution problem. Our numerical results show that the proposed method largely outperforms both benchmarks in terms of runtime and is able to solve significantly more instances to global optimality.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Experimental verification of a large flexible manipulator

A large experimental lightweight manipulator would be useful for material handling, for welding, or for ultrasonic inspection of a large structure, such as an airframe. The flexible parallel link mechanism is designed for high rigidity without increasing weight. This constrained system is analyzed by singular value decomposition of the constraint Jacobian matrix. A verification of the modeling using the assumed mode method is presented. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the linearized model are compared to the measured system natural frequencies and their associated mode shapes. The modeling results for large motions are compared to the time response data from the experiments. The hydraulic actuator is verified.

Lee, Jac Won↗

Dynamic Analysis and Control of Lightweight Manipulators with Flexible Parallel Link Mechanisms

The objective is the theoretical analysis and the experimental verification of dynamics and control of a two link flexible manipulator with a flexible parallel link mechanism. Nonlinear equations of motion of the lightweight manipulator are derived by the Lagrangian method in symbolic form to better understand the structure of the dynamic model. The resulting equation of motion have a structure which is useful to reduce the number of terms calculated, to check correctness, or to extend the model to higher order. A manipulator with a flexible parallel link mechanism is a constrained dynamic system whose equations are sensitive to numerical integration error. This constrained system is solved using singular value decomposition of the constraint Jacobian matrix. Elastic motion is expressed by the assumed mode method. Mode shape functions of each link are chosen using the load interfaced component mode synthesis. The discrepancies between the analytical model and the experiment are explained using a simplified and a detailed finite element model.

Lee, Jeh Won↗