Miroslav Balda

@Jose
Yes, your residuals are in order, but the brackets. However, we apply penalty functions in case, when we want to constrain a solution. Your proposal does not influence the solution at all, because all iterations remain in the square of the side = 4. You may try what happens, if you introduce bounds +-0.5 or +-0.25. Try it. Or look at the example from LMFnlsqtest file, where is more complex (circular) area, where the solution should be.

Weights are active only for current iteration outside bounds. It means, that it is not necessary to try to find "optimal" weights, because no optimal weight exists. The solution should be insensitive to the weight value. Therefore, only residuals corresponding penalty functions have to generate bigger residuals than other equations to keep iterations within bounds, where they are zero.. It may be very fast to guess that w=(10 up to 1000) could be appropriate. The final solution may not depend on the right value of the weight.

@Kat
I am preparing the function npeaks.m that decomposes a function into a sum of Gaussian functions with the use of LMFnlsq function. It will occur in a short time.

@Jose
Bounds can be introduced by additional residuals in the form of penalty functions.
The residual (x(4)<0)*x(4)*w4
will keep x(4) nonnegative, if the user-defined weight w4 be suitable positive real value. It should be found experimentally.

@Surpan
Your problem is solvable after introducing new variable d=a+b and constraints on the variables to be real. If you send me your data, I'll try to solve it.

@Jose
Yes, your residuals are in order, but the brackets. However, we apply penalty functions in case, when we want to constrain a solution. Your proposal does not influence the solution at all, because all iterations remain in the square of the side = 4. You may try what happens, if you introduce bounds +-0.5 or +-0.25. Try it. Or look at the example from LMFnlsqtest file, where is more complex (circular) area, where the solution should be.

Weights are active only for current iteration outside bounds. It means, that it is not necessary to try to find "optimal" weights, because no optimal weight exists. The solution should be insensitive to the weight value. Therefore, only residuals corresponding penalty functions have to generate bigger residuals than other equations to keep iterations within bounds, where they are zero.. It may be very fast to guess that w=(10 up to 1000) could be appropriate. The final solution may not depend on the right value of the weight.

@Jose 3.4.2013
No, it can not operate due to three reasons:
1. Formally, the chosen interval does not reduce the domain of feasible solution, that is within the interval. However, the most important reasons are:
2. your condition
(x(2)>2)*(x(2)<-2)*x(2)*w2 is a combination of two conditions. Thus you have to set up two residuals:
(x(2)>2)*(x(2)-2)*w2;
(x(2)<-2)*(x(2)+2)*w2;
Both residuals are zero for false condition, however they are linearly dependent on the distance from the limit value due to the second term (before the weight w2).
3. your proposed condition is identically equal zero, because the product of two logical terms equals zero for any x.

The weight w2 should be chosen carefully in such a way that it gives the solution just on the limit in case when the minimum lays outside the interval. It should be not to small and simultaneously not too large.