optimization function



On 1/29/08, Alexandre Campos <alexandre at emc.ufsc.br> wrote:

> exists in maxima something  to optimize a function (non-linear)
> constrained to some equations and/or  inequations ?

There is augmented_lagrangian_method which can solve problems with
equality constraints on a nonlinear objective function.
For inequality constraints, there isn't anything in Maxima to directly
solve such problems. Maybe you can try to rephrase the problem
as an unconstrained problem, e.g. a constraint x > 0 could be
translated into an unconstrained variable y = log(x). I don't know
if that is possible in general.

Or maybe the objective function is close enough to linear so you
could apply the simplex method, which Maxima has.

augmented_lagrangian_method is not the strongest method for
problems with equality constraints. I think there are some web
sites which describe various methods.

HTH

Robert Dodier