PSOPT Installer

The PSOPT Installer is a set of scripts and patches that allow the user to compile and run the PSOPT sample code.

"Pseudospectral Optimal Control Solver in C++" or PSOPT is a set of routines and sample code for optimal control.

The PSOPT package is available at:

• Website: http://www.psopt.org/
• Repository: https://github.com/PSOPT/psopt

However, this installer uses a modified version freely available.

Requirements

Supported Operating Systems (amd64)

• Debian: tested on Debian 8.10 and 9.3
• CentOS / RedHat Enterprise Linux (REL): tested on CentOS 7
• Ubuntu: tested on Ubuntu 16 LTS
• Fedora: tested on Fedora 27

Note

Debian 8.10, Debian 9.3 and CentOS 7 are recommended, because these GNU/Linux distributions outperform other distros in our tests.

Extra requirements

• Access to sudo. In Ubuntu, sudo is already configured. However, in Debian, CentOS, REL and Fedora, sudo must be configured by the sys admin.
• Access to Internet during installation to download dependencies.

Build

• Open a terminal window and type:

wget https://github.com/flavio-santes/psopt_installer/archive/dev.zip
unzip dev.zip
cd psopt_installer-dev
./psopt_installer.sh

The psopt_installer.sh script executes the following steps:

• Download all the dependencies.
• Configure, patch, compile and install all the dependencies.
• Patch and compile the PSOPT package.

Run sample applications

• For example, to run the coulomb sample application, open a terminal window and type:

cd ~/psopt_bundle
source set_variables.sh
cd psopt/PSOPT/examples/coulomb/
./coulomb

Frequently Asked Questions

I see there is a LICENSE.txt file, what does it mean?

The GNU Affero GPL version 3 License only applies to the following files:

• psopt_installer.sh
• scripts/set_variables.sh

What PSOPT version is included by the PSOPT Installer?

The PSOPT version with HEAD pointing to commit 88f9c2f.

Are you the PSOPT maintainer?

No, I am not. PSOPT issues must be reported to the PSOPT developers.

Why don't you distribute a binary containing all the software?

I can't. METIS 4.0.3 package forbids this. However, newer METIS versions are licensed under the Apache License v2.0, so perhaps if PSOPT is updated we can produce binary packages.

What is the difference between this project and the install scripts found at the psopt-master.zip file?

The psopt_installer.sh script installs all the dependencies in a portable way. If you want to hack the installer do the following:

Before installing PSOPT

If you modify the psopt_dir variable to point to another directory, the PSOPT Installer will install everything there, without modifying your current system libraries.

After installing PSOPT

Alternatively, you can move the psopt_bundle folder to any location within the machine and PSOPT will work fine.

Troubleshooting

I get the following message when trying to run the xxxxx sample application:

./xxxxx: error while loading shared libraries: libipopt.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Open a terminal window and type:

cd ~/psopt_bundle
source set_variables.sh
cd psopt/PSOPT/examples/coulomb/
./coulomb

Replace coulomb with the name of sample application you want to run.

Does the installer work on other GNU/Linux distributions?

Ubuntu 17

There are some bugs in PSOPT and/or its dependencies that prevent that in some cases, PSOPT routines demanding a lot of memory are unable to reach an optimal solution.

Workarounds:

• Increase the iteration number in the example (easiest)
• Change the BLAS library: modify Makefile, change this line:

	-lcblas

Use another BLAS library and recompile.

• Find and fix the bug (complicated)
• Or use GCC-6: gcc-6, g++-6, gfortran-6 and libgfortran-3 instead of the default compiler version (currently GCC-7). (a bit more complicated...)

The psopt_installer.sh script must be modified to allow the usage of GCC-6 and the following variables must be exported:

export CC=gcc-6
export CXX=g++-6
export FC=gfortran-6
export F77=gfortran-6

On Fedora 27, some examples do not converge, what should I do?

See the Ubuntu 17 Workarounds.