Multi-level Optimization
When dealing with complex payoff functions that are pertinent to realistic engineering problems, an alternative method is one of the multi-level techniques. These approaches allow models to be used in the optimization in a tiered approach by the passing of constraints to the lower levels and selecting the optimal value of the constraint value in the upper levels. An early paper in this area presents this idea for the optimization of the performance of a missile.
Read more about this topic: Trajectory Optimization