Title
Asynchronously parallel optimization solver for finding multiple minima.
Abstract
We propose and analyze an asynchronously parallel optimization algorithm for finding multiple, high-quality minima of nonlinear optimization problems. Our multistart algorithm considers all previously evaluated points when determining where to start or continue a local optimization run. Theoretical results show that when there are finitely many minima, the algorithm almost surely starts a finite number of local optimization runs and identifies every minimum. The algorithm is applicable to general optimization settings, but our numerical results focus on the case when derivatives are unavailable. In numerical tests, a Python implementation of the algorithm is shown to yield good approximations of many minima (including a global minimum), and this ability is shown to scale well with additional resources. Our implementation’s time to solution is shown also to scale well even when the time to perform the function evaluation is highly variable. An implementation of the algorithm is available in the libEnsemble library at https://github.com/Libensemble/libensemble.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1007/s12532-017-0131-4
Math. Program. Comput.
Keywords
Field
DocType
Parallel optimization algorithms,Multistart,Global optimization,Derivative-free optimization,Concurrent function evaluations,65K05,90C26,90C30,90C56
Derivative-free optimization,Mathematical optimization,Global optimization,Nonlinear programming,Maxima and minima,Solver,Almost surely,Local search (optimization),Mathematics,Python (programming language)
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
10
3
1867-2949
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.37
14
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jeffrey Larson1325.46
Stefan M. Wild248131.93