A primal nonsmooth reformulation for bilevel optimization problems

Abstract The solution of bilevel optimization problems with possibly nondifferentiable upper objective functions and with smooth and convex lower-level problems is discussed. A new approximate one-level reformulation for the original problem is introduced. An algorithm based on this reformulation is...
Ausführliche Beschreibung

Abstract The solution of bilevel optimization problems with possibly nondifferentiable upper objective functions and with smooth and convex lower-level problems is discussed. A new approximate one-level reformulation for the original problem is introduced. An algorithm based on this reformulation is developed that is proven to converge to a solution of the bilevel problem. Each iteration of the algorithm depends on the solution of a nonsmooth optimization problem and its implementation leverages recent advances on nonsmooth optimization algorithms, which are fundamental to obtain a practical method. Experimental work is performed in order to demonstrate some characteristics of the algorithm in practice. Ausführliche Beschreibung