Optimise: a computational environment for teaching optimization in electrical engineering

This paper presents Optimise, a computational optimization environment tool for education in electrical engineering. Optimise has been developed using software engineering process and object-oriented programming philosophy. This educational tool incorporates a set of deterministic and stochastic methods and also a set of computational intelligence techniques. Optimise offers a friendly interface that allows the students to practice the theory learned, and also to verify and compare the features of the optimization methods. A general view of the software is presented, describing its modules and class libraries. Some optimization problems are discussed to illustrate the flexibility and power of Optimise as an educational tool.