Our Maple package PHCmaple provides a convenient interface to the functions of PHCpack, a collection of numeric algorithms for solving polynomial systems using polynomial homotopy continuation, which was recently extended with facilities to deal with positive dimensional solution sets. The interface illustrates the benefits of linking computer algebra with numerical software. PHCmaple serves as...

We show how to use numerical continuation to compute the intersection C = A∩B of two algebraic sets A and B, where A, B, and C are numerically represented by witness sets. Enroute to this result, we first show how to find the irreducible decomposition of a system of polynomials restricted to an algebraic set. The intersection of components A and B then follows by considering the decomposition o...

The aim of this paper is to study how efficiently we evaluate a system of multivariate polynomials and their partial derivatives in homotopy continuation methods. Our major tool is an extension of the Horner scheme, which is popular in evaluating a univariate polynomial, to a multivariate polynomial. But the extension is not unique, and there are many Horner factorizations of a given multivaria...

In engineering and applied mathematics, polynomial systems arise whose solution sets contain components of different dimensions and multiplicities. In this article we present algorithms, based on homotopy continuation, that compute much of the geometric information contained in the primary decomposition of the solution set. In particular, ignoring multiplicities, our algorithms lay out the deco...

In this paper, the geometric design problem of serial-link robot manipulators with three revolute (R) joints is solved using a polynomial homotopy continuation method. Three spatial positions and orientations are defined and the dimensions of the geometric parameters of the 3-R manipulator are computed so that the manipulator will be able to place its end-effector at these three pre-specified l...

We confirm a conjecture of Littlewood: there exist seven infinite circular cylinders of unit radius which mutually touch each other. In fact, we exhibit two such sets of cylinders. Our approach is algebraic and uses symbolic and numerical computational techniques. We consider a system of polynomial equations describing the position of the axes of the cylinders in the 3 dimensional space. To hav...

Consider the multi-homogeneous homotopy continuation method for solving a system of polynomial equations. For any partition of variables, the multi-homogeneous Bézout number bounds the number of isolated solution curves one has to follow in the method. This paper presents a local search method for finding a partition of variables with minimal multi-homogeneous Bézout number. As with any other l...

The aim of this paper is to study how efficiently we evaluate a system of multivariate polynomials and their partial derivatives in homotopy continuation methods. Our major tool is an extension of the Horner scheme, which is popular in evaluating a univariate polynomial, to a multivariate polynomial. But the extension is not unique, and there are many Horner factorizations of a given multivaria...

We use our recent implementation of a certified homotopy tracking algorithm to search for start systems that minimize the average complexity of finding all roots of a regular system of polynomial equations. While finding optimal start systems is a hard problem, our experiments show that it is possible to find start systems that deliver better average complexity than the ones that are commonly u...