I am looking into using Nlopt for solving optimisation problems in Python.
I have a series of simultaneous equations of the form Ax = b
where A is an NxM matrix, with x the solution. Another way to think about this is that I have N simultaneous equations of the form x_1c_1m + x_2c_2m + .... + x_Nc_Nm = k_M, where x_i are variables to solve for, c_im is a constant associated with x_i when in equation M=m, and k_m is some constant in equation M=m. c_im and k_m are all known.
What confuses me is how to even approach this in Nlopt. Nlopt requires you to have actual callable functions, which I don't have? I suppose I could generalise each of the equations in that matrix equation above to something like:
def fn(x,c_m,k_m):
val = 0
for x_i, c_im in zip(x,c_m):
val += x_i * c_im
return val - k_m
where c_m and k_m would be already known, with the variables to solve for in x. All the examples I've seen have only been looking at a single variable problem, which has kind of thrown me a little. Would I then have to somehow define M copies of this function, and set each copy of fn as an equality constraint in the Nlopt optimisation object? It's all rather confusing. I'm looking to solve for x, which itself has multiple solutions, and I want to try to find the minimum values of x (or atleast an approximate solution if an exact solution cannot be found). Would I have to then set multiple objective functions, ie obj_fn_i = min(x_i) or something like that? It's all a little confusing to me in terms of what needs to be presented to the solver. I've already got an analytical solution to the above problem, so I can check my results reliably. Any help appreciated.
Cheers!
I have been using NLopt for a couple of problems, and what I have come to understand is the solver requires an objective function which returns a float value, so you must set the function as an MSE sum, or still as a single float value to be minimized. And it can solve for an array of variables x, in which both the objective function and constraint must depend. All equations that are involved in the system you can insert either in the objective function directly, or as constraints. Hope this was helpful somehow!