Sequential equality-constrained optimization for nonlinear programming

A new method is proposed for solving optimization problems with equality constraints and bounds on the variables. In the spirit of Sequential Quadratic Programming and Sequential Linearly-Constrained Programming, the new method approximately solves, at each iteration, an equality-constrained optimization problem. The bound constraints are handled in outer iterations by means of an Augmented Lagrangian scheme. Global convergence of the method follows from well-established non-linear programming theories. Numerical experiments are presented.