An effective nonlinear interval sequential quadratic programming method for uncertain inverse problems

Abstract

An effective nonlinear interval sequential quadratic programming method is proposed to provide an efficient tool for uncertain inverse problems. Assisted by the ideology of sequential quadratic programming and dimension-reduction analysis theory, the interval inverse problem is transformed into several interval arithmetic and deterministic optimizations, which could enhance computational efficiency without losing much accuracy. The novelty of the proposed method lies in two main aspects. First, an alternate updating strategy is proposed to identify the radii and midpoints of the interval inputs in each cycle, which could reduce the number of iterative steps. Second, the standard quadratic models are constructed based on the dimension-reduction analysis results, rather than the second-order Taylor expansion. Therefore, the interval arithmetic can be applied to efficiently calculate the interval response, which avoids the inner optimization. Moreover, a novel iterative mechanism is developed to accelerate the convergence rate of the proposed method. Finally, two numerical examples and an engineering application are adopted to verify its feasibility, accuracy and efficiency.