Numerical experience with a derivative-free trust-funnel method for nonlinear optimization problems with general nonlinear constraints

Abstract

A trust-funnel method is proposed for solving nonlinear optimization problems with general nonlinear constraints. It extends the one presented by Gould and Toint [Nonlinear programming without a penalty function or a filter. Math. Prog. 122(1):155–196, 2010], originally proposed for equality-constrained optimization problems only, to problems with both equality and inequality constraints and where simple bounds are also considered. As the original one, our method makes use of neither filter nor penalty functions and considers the objective function and the constraints as independently as possible. To handle the bounds, an active-set approach is employed. We then exploit techniques developed for derivative-free optimization (DFO) to obtain a method that can also be used to solve problems where the derivatives are unavailable or are available at a prohibitive cost. The resulting approach extends the DEFT-FUNNEL algorithm presented by Sampaio and Toint [A derivative-free trust-funnel method for equality-constrained nonlinear optimization. Comput. Optim. Appl. 61(1):25–49, 2015], which implements a derivative-free trust-funnel method for equality-constrained problems. Numerical experiments with the extended algorithm show that our approach compares favourably to other well-known model-based algorithms for DFO.