Active-set strategy in Powell's method for optimization without derivatives

Abstract

In this article we present an algorithm for solving bound constrained optimization problems without derivatives based on Powell's method for derivative-free optimization. First we consider the unconstrained optimization problem. At each iteration a quadratic interpolation model of the objective function is constructed around the current iterate and this model is minimized to obtain a new trial point. The whole process is embedded within a trust-region framework. Our algorithm uses infinity norm instead of the Euclidean norm and we solve a box constrained quadratic subproblem using an active-set strategy to explore faces of the box. Therefore, a bound constrained optimization algorithm is easily extended. We compare our implementation with NEWUOA and BOBYQA, Powell's algorithms for unconstrained and bound constrained derivative free optimization respectively. Numerical experiments show that, in general, our algorithm require less functional evaluations than Powell's algorithms. Mathematical subject classification: Primary: 06B10; Secondary: 06D05.