A computational method for obtaining Stackelberg solutions to two-level nonlinear programming problems through particle swarm optimization

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on two-level nonlinear programming problems with no coordination between the decision maker at the upper level (the leader) and the decision maker at the lower level (the follower), and propose a computational method using particle swarm optimization (PSO) for obtaining Stackelberg solutions to two-level nonlinear programming problems. We can realize global search and reduce computational time by obtaining a rational response in every certain generation. Moreover, we carry out numerical experiments in order to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method by comparing with existing methods.