En-Route Optimal Flight Planning Constrained to Pass Through Waypoints using MINLP

Abstract: In this paper we study the en-route strategic flight planning of a commercial aircraft constrained to pass through a set of waypoints whose sequence is not predefined. This problem has been solved as an hybrid optimal control problem in which, given the dynamic model of the aircraft, the initial and final states, the path constraints constituting the envelope of flight, and a set of waypoints in the European air space, one has to find the control inputs, the switching times, the optimal sequence of waypoints and the corresponding trajectory of the aircraft that minimize the direct operating cost during the flight. The complete layout of waypoints in the European airspace is reduced and waypoints are gathered into a small number of clusters. The aircraft is constrained to pass through one waypoint inside every cluster of waypoints. The presence of multi point constraints makes the optimal control problem particularly difficult to solve. The hybrid optimal control problem is converted into a mixed integer non linear programming problem first making the unknown switching times part of the state, then introducing binary variable to enforce the constraint of passing through one waypoint inside every cluster, and finally applying a direct collocation method. The resulting mixed integer non linear programming problem has been solved using a branch and bound algorithm. The cases studied and the numerical results show the effectiveness, efficiency and applicability of this method for enroute strategic flight plans definition

Mixed-Integer Convex Nonlinear Optimization with Gradient-Boosted Trees Embedded

Decision trees usefully represent sparse, high dimensional and noisy data. Having learned a function from this data, we may want to thereafter integrate the function into a larger decision-making problem, e.g., for picking the best chemical process catalyst. We study a large-scale, industrially-relevant mixed-integer nonlinear nonconvex optimization problem involving both gradient-boosted trees and penalty functions mitigating risk. This mixed-integer optimization problem with convex penalty terms broadly applies to optimizing pre-trained regression tree models. Decision makers may wish to optimize discrete models to repurpose legacy predictive models, or they may wish to optimize a discrete model that particularly well-represents a data set. We develop several heuristic methods to find feasible solutions, and an exact, branch-and-bound algorithm leveraging structural properties of the gradient-boosted trees and penalty functions. We computationally test our methods on concrete mixture design instance and a chemical catalysis industrial instance

Branching on multi-aggregated variables

open5siopenGamrath, Gerald; Melchiori, Anna; Berthold, Timo; Gleixner, Ambros M.; Salvagnin, DomenicoGamrath, Gerald; Melchiori, Anna; Berthold, Timo; Gleixner, Ambros M.; Salvagnin, Domenic

A New Dantzig-Wolfe Reformulation And Branch-And-Price Algorithm For The Capacitated Lot Sizing Problem With Set Up Times

The textbook Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition for the Capacitated LotSizing Problem (CLSP),as already proposed by Manne in 1958, has animportant structural deficiency. Imposingintegrality constraints onthe variables in the full blown master will not necessarily givetheoptimal IP solution as only production plans which satisfy theWagner-Whitin condition canbe selected. It is well known that theoptimal solution to a capacitated lot sizing problem willnotnecessarily have this Wagner-Whitin property. The columns of thetraditionaldecomposition model include both the integer set up andcontinuous production quantitydecisions. Choosing a specific set upschedule implies also taking the associated Wagner-Whitin productionquantities. We propose the correct Dantzig-Wolfedecompositionreformulation separating the set up and productiondecisions. This formulation gives the samelower bound as Manne'sreformulation and allows for branch-and-price. We use theCapacitatedLot Sizing Problem with Set Up Times to illustrate our approach.Computationalexperiments are presented on data sets available from theliterature. Column generation isspeeded up by a combination of simplexand subgradient optimization for finding the dualprices. The resultsshow that branch-and-price is computationally tractable andcompetitivewith other approaches. Finally, we briefly discuss how thisnew Dantzig-Wolfe reformulationcan be generalized to other mixedinteger programming problems, whereas in theliterature,branch-and-price algorithms are almost exclusivelydeveloped for pure integer programmingproblems.branch-and-price;Lagrange relaxation;Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition;lot sizing;mixed-integer programming

Reformulation and decomposition of integer programs

In this survey we examine ways to reformulate integer and mixed integer programs. Typically, but not exclusively, one reformulates so as to obtain stronger linear programming relaxations, and hence better bounds for use in a branch-and-bound based algorithm. First we cover in detail reformulations based on decomposition, such as Lagrangean relaxation, Dantzig-Wolfe column generation and the resulting branch-and-price algorithms. This is followed by an examination of Benders’ type algorithms based on projection. Finally we discuss in detail extended formulations involving additional variables that are based on problem structure. These can often be used to provide strengthened a priori formulations. Reformulations obtained by adding cutting planes in the original variables are not treated here.Integer program, Lagrangean relaxation, column generation, branch-and-price, extended formulation, Benders' algorithm

Design, implementation and testing of an integrated branch and bound algorithm for piecewise linear and discrete programming problems within an LP framework

A number of discrete variable representations are well accepted and find regular use within LP systems. These are Binary variables, General Integer variables, Variable Upper Bounds or Semi Continuous variables, Special Ordered Sets of type One and type Two. The FortLP system has been extended to include these representations. A Branch and Bound algorithm is designed in which the choice of sub-problems and branching variables are kept general. This provides considerable scope of experimentation with tree development heuristics and the tree search can then be guided by search parameters specified by user subroutines. The data structures for representing the variables and the definition of the branch and bound tree are described. The results of experimental investigation for a few test problems are reported