Randomized directional search for nonconvex optimization

Abstract: Direct search methods are a class of popular global optimization algorithms for general nonconvex programs. In this paper, we propose a randomized directional search algorithm (RDSA) for globally solving nonconvex optimization problems. The convergence of RDSA to a global optimizer is established and its computational complexity is derived. Additionally, IRDSA is proposed as an improved algorithm of RDSA. We then apply both RDSA and IRDSA to nonconvex programs with multiple local optima. Results demonstrate that RDSA and IRDSA exhibit remarkable efficacy to identify the global optimum and outperform other global optimization algorithms in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and robustness.