Project-team

ECUADOR

Program transformations for scientific computing
Program transformations for scientific computing

The ECUADOR team studies Algorithmic Differentiation (AD) of computer programs, which aims at transforming, as mechanically as possible, a given program that computes a mathematical function F into another program that computes analytical derivatives of F. We put emphasis on the adjoint mode of AD, a sophisticated transformation that yields gradients for optimization at a remarkably low cost. This blends:

  • AD theory: We study the AD models, to justify that they produce correct erivatives and to improve their performance. We also study software engineering techniques for analysis and transformation of programs.
  • AD application to Scientific Computing: We adapt both the AD models and the strategies of Scientific Computing to take full advantage of AD. We validate our work on real-size applications.

We aim to produce AD code that can compete with hand-written sensitivity and adjoint programs used in the
industry. We implement our algorithms into the tool Tapenade, one of the most popular AD tools at present.

 

Centre(s) inria
Inria Centre at Université Côte d'Azur

Contacts

Team leader

Christine Claux

Team assistant

News