Double penalty method for bilevel optimization problems

A penalty function method approach for solving a constrained bilevel optimization problem is proposed. In the algorithm, both the upper level and the lower level problems are approximated by minimization problems of augmented objective functions. A convergence theorem is presented. The method is applicable to the non-singleton lower-level reaction set case. Constraint qualifications which imply the assumptions of the general convergence theorem are given.A part of this paper was presented in a talk at the 11th Symposium on Mathematical Programming with Data Perturbations, Washington, DC, May 1989.