Nonlinear Programming

Nonlinear programming (NLP) is a branch of mathematical optimization concerned with problems in which the objective function or at least one constraint is nonlinear. Formalized comprehensively by Jorge Nocedal and Stephen Wright in their seminal 2006 text, NLP encompasses gradient-based algorithms — including sequential quadratic programming (SQP), interior-point methods, and quasi-Newton approaches — for finding locally or globally optimal solutions to continuous decision problems arising across engineering, economics, and the physical sciences.