BARON is still ahead of other competing MINLP solvers.
Published Feb. 28, 2017 Updated Feb. 25, 2022
PITTSBURGH, PA—A recent academic study at the University of Arizona found that BARON is three to ten times faster than competing MINLP solvers while solving 20 to 30 percent more problems. This study shows the robustness of BARON and the expertise of its optimization developers.
"We were pleased to see that Mittelmann's research confirms, once again, that BARON is consistently ahead of the competition in terms of speed and solution quality," said Nick Sahinidis, The Optimization Firm's CEO.
For more than 30 years, Professor Hans Mittelmann at the University of Arizona has benchmarked optimization solvers. Mittelmann's benchmarking site has become the go-to source for those interested in independent comparisons of linear, integer, and nonlinear programming software. In addition to solver speed, Mittelmann's research examines solver robustness and solution quality obtained over a large variety of problem characteristics.
The Optimization Firm has developed BARON since 2001 and consistently releases new BARON versions with significant advances for difficult optimization problems. A previous comparative study conducted by Arnold Neumaier's research team ten years ago determined that BARON was the fastest and most robust global NLP solver. The size and complexity of problems that solvers successfully solved in the Neumaier and Mittlemann studies demonstrate that global optimization research has advanced considerably over the past decade, especially for problems with integer variables. Solvers are far more robust and are more likely to solve industrially-relevant problems. New feasibility heuristics and new relaxations have contributed to the growth of this technology.
Today, MINLP optimization problems arise in a vast range of industrial applications, including engineering process design, portfolio optimization, refinery scheduling operations, and renewable energy. To address these challenging problems, more than 500 institutions in over 50 countries rely on BARON for its accuracy and robustness.
BARON can be used through BARON's own parser, as well as JuMP, Pyomo, MATLAB, or YALMIP. The Optimization Firm provides BARON licenses for businesses and universities worldwide.
This story was originally published in 2017. It has been updated with a new link to the archived study from the Hans Mittelmann benchmarking site.
The Optimization Firm is a pioneer and market leader in optimization and analytics since 2001. We are the makers of BARON, and most recently, ALAMO. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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