Solving Minimax Problems: Local Smoothing Versus Global Smoothing

The aim of this chapter is to compare different smoothing techniques for solving finite minimax problems. We consider the local smoothing technique which approximates the function in some neighborhood of a point of nondifferentiability and also global smoothing techniques such as the exponential and hyperbolic smoothing which approximate the function in the whole domain. Computational results on the collection of academic test problems are used to compare different smoothing techniques. Results show the superiority of the local smoothing technique for convex problems and global smoothing techniques for nonconvex problems.