Axis-Aligned Relaxations for Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhu, Haisheng, He, Taotao, Tawarmalani, Mohit
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zhu, Haisheng
He, Taotao
Tawarmalani, Mohit
author_facet Zhu, Haisheng
He, Taotao
Tawarmalani, Mohit
contents We present a novel relaxation framework for general mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) grounded in computational geometry. Our approach constructs polyhedral relaxations by convexifying finite sets of strategically chosen points, iteratively refining the approximation to converge toward the simultaneous convex hull of factorable function graphs. The framework is underpinned by three key contributions: (i) a new class of explicit inequalities for products of functions that strictly improve upon standard factorable and composite relaxation schemes; (ii) a proof establishing that the simultaneous convex hull of multilinear functions over axis-aligned regions is fully determined by their values at corner points, thereby generalizing existing results from hypercubes to arbitrary axis-aligned domains; and (iii) the integration of computational geometry tools, specifically voxelization and QuickHull, to efficiently approximate feasible regions and function graphs. We implement this framework and evaluate it on randomly generated polynomial optimization problems and a suite of 619 instances from \texttt{MINLPLib}. Numerical results demonstrate significant improvements over state-of-the-art benchmarks: on polynomial instances, our relaxation closes an additional 20--25\% of the optimality gap relative to standard methods on half the instances. Furthermore, compared against an enhanced factorable programming baseline and Gurobi's root-node bounds, our approach yields superior dual bounds on approximately 30\% of \texttt{MINLPLib} instances, with roughly 10\% of cases exhibiting a gap reduction exceeding 50\%.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_18458
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Axis-Aligned Relaxations for Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming
Zhu, Haisheng
He, Taotao
Tawarmalani, Mohit
Optimization and Control
Computational Geometry
Mathematical Software
90C26, 90-04
G.1.6; I.3.5
We present a novel relaxation framework for general mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) grounded in computational geometry. Our approach constructs polyhedral relaxations by convexifying finite sets of strategically chosen points, iteratively refining the approximation to converge toward the simultaneous convex hull of factorable function graphs. The framework is underpinned by three key contributions: (i) a new class of explicit inequalities for products of functions that strictly improve upon standard factorable and composite relaxation schemes; (ii) a proof establishing that the simultaneous convex hull of multilinear functions over axis-aligned regions is fully determined by their values at corner points, thereby generalizing existing results from hypercubes to arbitrary axis-aligned domains; and (iii) the integration of computational geometry tools, specifically voxelization and QuickHull, to efficiently approximate feasible regions and function graphs. We implement this framework and evaluate it on randomly generated polynomial optimization problems and a suite of 619 instances from \texttt{MINLPLib}. Numerical results demonstrate significant improvements over state-of-the-art benchmarks: on polynomial instances, our relaxation closes an additional 20--25\% of the optimality gap relative to standard methods on half the instances. Furthermore, compared against an enhanced factorable programming baseline and Gurobi's root-node bounds, our approach yields superior dual bounds on approximately 30\% of \texttt{MINLPLib} instances, with roughly 10\% of cases exhibiting a gap reduction exceeding 50\%.
title Axis-Aligned Relaxations for Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming
topic Optimization and Control
Computational Geometry
Mathematical Software
90C26, 90-04
G.1.6; I.3.5
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18458