An interior-point method for the single-facility location problem with mixed norms using a conic formulation

We consider the single-facility location problem with mixed norms, i.e. the problem of minimizing the sum of the distances from a point to a set of fixed points in R, where each distance can be measured according to a different p-norm.We show how this problem can be expressed into a structured conic format by decomposing the nonlinear components of the objective into a series of constraints involving three-dimensional cones. Using the availability of a self-concordant barrier for these cones, we present a polynomial-time algorithm (a long-step path-following interior-point scheme) to solve the problem up to a given accuracy. Finally, we report computational results for this algorithm and compare with standard nonlinear optimization solvers applied to this problem.nonsymmetric conic optimization, conic reformulation, convex optimization, sum of norm minimization, single-facility location problems, interior-point methods

A sequential semidefinite programming method and an application in passive reduced-order modeling

We consider the solution of nonlinear programs with nonlinear semidefiniteness constraints. The need for an efficient exploitation of the cone of positive semidefinite matrices makes the solution of such nonlinear semidefinite programs more complicated than the solution of standard nonlinear programs. In particular, a suitable symmetrization procedure needs to be chosen for the linearization of the complementarity condition. The choice of the symmetrization procedure can be shifted in a very natural way to certain linear semidefinite subproblems, and can thus be reduced to a well-studied problem. The resulting sequential semidefinite programming (SSP) method is a generalization of the well-known SQP method for standard nonlinear programs. We present a sensitivity result for nonlinear semidefinite programs, and then based on this result, we give a self-contained proof of local quadratic convergence of the SSP method. We also describe a class of nonlinear semidefinite programs that arise in passive reduced-order modeling, and we report results of some numerical experiments with the SSP method applied to problems in that class

Conic Optimization Theory: Convexification Techniques and Numerical Algorithms

Optimization is at the core of control theory and appears in several areas of this field, such as optimal control, distributed control, system identification, robust control, state estimation, model predictive control and dynamic programming. The recent advances in various topics of modern optimization have also been revamping the area of machine learning. Motivated by the crucial role of optimization theory in the design, analysis, control and operation of real-world systems, this tutorial paper offers a detailed overview of some major advances in this area, namely conic optimization and its emerging applications. First, we discuss the importance of conic optimization in different areas. Then, we explain seminal results on the design of hierarchies of convex relaxations for a wide range of nonconvex problems. Finally, we study different numerical algorithms for large-scale conic optimization problems.Comment: 18 page

Local quadratic convergence of polynomial-time interior-point methods for conic optimization problems

In this paper, we establish a local quadratic convergence of polynomial-time interior-point methods for general conic optimization problems. The main structural property used in our analysis is the logarithmic homogeneity of self-concordant barrier functions. We propose new path-following predictor-corrector schemes which work only in the dual space. They are based on an easily computable gradient proximity measure, which ensures an automatic transformation of the global linear rate of convergence to the local quadratic one under some mild assumptions. Our step-size procedure for the predictor step is related to the maximum step size (the one that takes us to the boundary). It appears that in order to obtain local superlinear convergence, we need to tighten the neighborhood of the central path proportionally to the current duality gapconic optimization problem, worst-case complexity analysis, self-concordant barriers, polynomial-time methods, predictor-corrector methods, local quadratic convergence