Tutorial: How to solve an optimization problem

Although the library GEMSEO is dedicated to the MDO, it can also be used for mono-disciplinary optimization problems. This tutorial presents some examples on analytical test cases.

1. Optimization based on a design of experiments

Let \((P)\) be a simple optimization problem:

\[\begin{split}(P) = \left\{ \begin{aligned} & \underset{x\in\mathbb{N}^2}{\text{minimize}} & & f(x) = x_1 + x_2 \\ & \text{subject to} & & -5 \leq x \leq 5 \end{aligned} \right.\end{split}\]

In this subsection, we will see how to use GEMSEO to solve this problem \((P)\) by means of a Design Of Experiments (DOE)

1.a. Define the objective function

Firstly, by means of the create_discipline() API function, we create an Discipline of AutoPyDiscipline type from a python function. We also configure the GEMSEO logger with the configure_logger() function.

from gemseo import configure_logger
from gemseo import create_discipline

configure_logger()

def f(x1=0., x2=0.):
    y = x1 + x2
    return y

discipline = create_discipline("AutoPyDiscipline", py_func=f)

Now, we want to minimize this Discipline over a design of experiments (DOE).

1.b. Define the design space

For that, by means of the create_design_space() API function, we define the DesignSpace \([-5, 5]\times[-5, 5]\) by using its add_variable() method.

from gemseo import create_design_space

design_space = create_design_space()
design_space.add_variable("x1", 1, lower_bound=-5, upper_bound=5, type_="integer")
design_space.add_variable("x2", 1, lower_bound=-5, upper_bound=5, type_="integer")

1.c. Define the DOE scenario

Then, by means of the create_scenario() API function, we define a DOEScenario from the Discipline and the DesignSpace defined above:

from gemseo import create_scenario

scenario = create_scenario(
    discipline, "DisciplinaryOpt", "y", design_space, scenario_type="DOE"
)

1.d. Execute the DOE scenario

Lastly, we solve the OptimizationProblem included in the DOEScenario defined above by minimizing the objective function over a design of experiments included in the DesignSpace. Precisely, we choose a full factorial design of size \(11^2\):

scenario.execute(algo_name="PYDOE_FULLFACT", n_samples=11**2)

The optimum results can be found in the execution log. It is also possible to extract them from the Scenario.optimization_result.

optimization_result = scenario.optimization_result
print(f"The solution of P is (x*,f(x*)) = ({optimization_result.x_opt}, {optimization_result.f_opt})")

which yields:

The solution of P is (x*,f(x*)) = ([-5, -5], -10.0).

2. Optimization based on a quasi-Newton method by means of the library scipy

Let \((P)\) be a simple optimization problem:

\[\begin{split}(P) = \left\{ \begin{aligned} & \underset{x}{\text{minimize}} & & f(x) = \sin(x) - \exp(x) \\ & \text{subject to} & & -2 \leq x \leq 2 \end{aligned} \right.\end{split}\]

In this subsection, we will see how to use GEMSEO to solve this problem \((P)\) by means of an optimizer directly used from the library SciPy.

2.a. Define the objective function

Firstly, we create the objective function and its gradient as standard python functions:

import numpy as np

def g(x=0):
    y = np.sin(x) - np.exp(x)
    return y

def dgdx(x=0):
    y = np.cos(x) - np.exp(x)
    return y

2.b. Minimize the objective function

Now, we can minimize this python function over its design space by means of the L-BFGS-B algorithm implemented in the function scipy.optimize.fmin_l_bfgs_b.

from scipy import optimize

x_0 = -0.5 * np.ones(1)
opt = optimize.fmin_l_bfgs_b(g, x_0, fprime=dgdx, bounds=[(-.2, 2.)])
x_opt, f_opt, _ = opt

Then, we can display the solution of our optimization problem with the following code:

print(f"The solution of P is (x*,f(x*)) = ({x_opt[0]}, {f_opt}).")

which gives:

The solution of P is (x*,f(x*)) = (-0.2, -1.017400083873043).

See also

You can found the scipy implementation of the L-BFGS-B algorithm by clicking here.

3. Optimization based on a quasi-Newton method by means of the GEMSEO optimization interface

Let \((P)\) be a simple optimization problem:

\[\begin{split}(P) = \left\{ \begin{aligned} & \underset{x}{\text{minimize}} & & f(x) = \sin(x) - \exp(x) \\ & \text{subject to} & & -2 \leq x \leq 2 \end{aligned} \right.\end{split}\]

In this subsection, we will see how to use GEMSEO to solve this problem \((P)\) by means of an optimizer from SciPy called through the optimization interface of GEMSEO.

3.a. Define the objective function

Firstly, by means of the create_discipline() API function, we create an Discipline of AutoPyDiscipline type from a python function:

import numpy as np
from gemseo import create_discipline

def g(x=0):
    y = np.sin(x) - np.exp(x)
    return y

def dgdx(x=0):
    y = np.cos(x) - np.exp(x)
    return y

discipline = create_discipline("AutoPyDiscipline", py_func=g, py_jac=dgdx)

Now, we can to minimize this Discipline over a design space, by means of a quasi-Newton method from the initial point \(0.5\).

3.b. Define the design space

For that, by means of the create_design_space() API function, we define the DesignSpace \([-2., 2.]\) with initial value \(0.5\) by using its add_variable() method.

from gemseo import create_design_space

design_space = create_design_space()
design_space.add_variable("x", 1, lower_bound=-2., upper_bound=2., value=-0.5 * np.ones(1))

3.c. Define the optimization problem

Then, by means of the create_scenario() API function, we define an MDOScenario from the Discipline and the DesignSpace defined above:

from gemseo import create_scenario

scenario = create_scenario(
    discipline, "DisciplinaryOpt", "y", design_space, scenario_type="MDO"
)

3.d. Execute the optimization problem

Lastly, we solve the OptimizationProblem included in the MDOScenario defined above by minimizing the objective function over the DesignSpace. Precisely, we choose the L-BFGS-B algorithm implemented in the function scipy.optimize.fmin_l_bfgs_b and indirectly called by means of the class OptimizationLibraryFactory and of its function execute():

scenario.execute(algo_name="L-BFGS-B", max_iter=100)

The optimization results are displayed in the log file. They can also be obtained using the following code:

optimization_result = scenario.optimization_result
print(f"The solution of P is (x*,f(x*)) = ({optimization_result.x_opt}, {optimization_result.f_opt}).")

which yields:

The solution of P is (x*,f(x*)) = (-1.29, -1.24).

See also

You can find the SciPy implementation of the L-BFGS-B algorithm algorithm by clicking here.

Tip

In order to get the list of available optimization algorithms, use:

from gemseo import get_available_opt_algorithms

algo_list = get_available_opt_algorithms()
print(f"Available algorithms: {algo_list}")

which gives:

Available algorithms: ['NLOPT_SLSQP', 'L-BFGS-B', 'SLSQP', 'NLOPT_COBYLA', 'NLOPT_BFGS', 'NLOPT_NEWUOA', 'TNC', 'P-L-BFGS-B', 'NLOPT_MMA', 'NLOPT_BOBYQA', 'ODD']

4. Saving and post-processing

After the resolution of the OptimizationProblem, we can export the results into a HDF file:

problem = scenario.formulation.optimization_problem
problem.to_hdf("my_optim.hdf5")

We can also post-process the optimization history by means of the function execute_post(), either from the OptimizationProblem:

from gemseo import execute_post

execute_post(problem, "OptHistoryView", save=True, file_path="opt_view_with_doe")

or from the HDF file created above:

from gemseo import execute_post

execute_post("my_optim.hdf5", "OptHistoryView", save=True, file_path="opt_view_from_disk")

This command produces a series of PDF files: